Medical teachers unlike most other teaching professionals, are unique in that no special prior or in service training in pedagogic techniques is considered necessary for their recruitment as teachers. Under these circumstances, their ability to teach is largely dependent on either by observation of other teachers or by a process of trial and error while actually teaching in a classroom. Medical professionals always feel that their education does not prepare them for teaching. Teaching in a large class room situation does not provide a conducive atmosphere for the development or refinement of teaching skills. It is mainly due to the absence of opportunity to receive feedback from students. In today's era of Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME), the focus is on active learning and development of teaching–learning skills, rather than on passive acquisition of information.
Microteaching is an organized practice teaching. It gives teachers a confidence, support, and feedback. It is a short slice of what a teacher plan to do with their students. Microteaching is a quick, efficient, proven, and fun way to help teachers get off to a strong start.
Microteaching is a “scaled-down teaching encounter designed to develop new skills and refine old ones.”
Microteaching was evolved by Allen and his group in late sixties to improve the skills of teachers.
It puts the teacher under the microscope. All the faults of the teacher are observed.
The observer gives a constructive feedback. A micro sized lesson of 5-10 minutes is presented peer group or colleagues. It employs real teaching situation for developing skills and helps to get deeper knowledge regarding the art of teaching. This stanford technique involved the steps of “plan, teach, observe, re-plan, re-teach and re-observe.’
Advantages of Microteaching
Microteaching helps in eliminating errors and builds stronger teaching skills for the beginners and senior teachers.
Microteaching increases the self-confidence, improves the in-class teaching performances, and develops the classroom management skills.
It enables understanding of behaviors important in class room teaching.
Limitations of Microteaching
Time is the major constraint in implementation of microteaching sessions.
Resistance from senior teachers.
Microteaching produces homogenized standard robots with set smiles and procedures.
A lot depends on motivation of a teacher to improve himself and the ability of the observer to give a constructive feedback.