What is micro teaching

Shaina Raza
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

I delivered a 5 minutes microteaching session in front of 10 audiences, out of which 9 were my PhD fellows who are studying “Method of Instruction” course with me; and 1 of them is our instructor .

Here is my reflection on my microteaching session that I had done on 7th February 2018 during the class timing.

I chose the topic of Databases Architecture for the following reasons: (i) quite concise and simpler to present in 5~7 minutes (ii) myself having solid foundation and in-depth knowledge of the subject (iii) self- confident that I can present it well while handling the questions and encouraging a healthy debate.

I brought my presentation slides and supporting material in my laptop, a USB , a board marker and a pointer ready before presenting. While, I used my USB connected with the instructor’ laptop and the multimedia projector.

I prepared my lesson plan using the instructions provided by instructor in the second lecture and by reading the supplementary material from the text book : McKeachie’s teaching tips [1]. I spend considerable time preparing for this microteaching session that took place in the seminar room in front of the observers with U-style seating arrangement in an informal and intimate space. Before presenting, I adjusted the time in my smart watch for 5 minutes and tested the presentation material on USB.

I delivered the microteaching session as planned following the strategical approach as discussed [1]. I feel that majority of my lesson presentation went very smooth. I was able to induce a friendly environment in the class that was reflected by the response I got from my peers during the pre-assessment and post-assessment phase.

I believe that my peers were able to grasp the topic very quickly since I preferred to use a layman language over the technical one. Before merging into the details of the topic, I presented the commonly used terms and jargons in a slide in order to make things clearer for the audience to understand. I also presented a real-world example in the form an illustration so that my audience would be able to map it with the topic theory, an effective learning approach that I really strive throughout my academic career. I felt that students were engaged in what I presented; and I perceived that from their body language and their involvement during interactive moments.

My closure was timely (within 5 minutes) and I presented a quick summary to the audience with some references for further study.

I received 10 feedback forms filled up by the audience, out of which 9 were from my PhD colleagues and 1 was from the instructor. Five out of ten feedbacks were anonymous, while only 5 persons mentioned their names. If I summarize the comments by evaluators, so I like to group them as majorly positive comments and some useful suggestions.

Positive comments as written by the evaluators are:

· Clear objectives for the lesson

· Clear introduction and start

· Explaining terminologies and brief background

· Asking quizzes (pre and post assessment)

· Thorough engagement during the session

· Mapping the topic with real-world scenario

· Illustrations for the database architecture at two evident places

· Nice use of framework (database design)

· Giving example for the current learning system of Ryerson : D2L

· References given for further study

Some of the suggestions given by the evaluators are

· Can give more real life scenarios

· Linked with previous presentation from the preceded presenter at the same day.

· May use lesser text or words in the slides

These suggestions are really important for me to learn as a teacher. However, a little justification I like to give at my end is that I really used two real-time example (a general scenario in the IT industry : very 1st slide and the D2L example explained verbally at the end) . It gave me the perception that the students in the real-time class setting expect more illustrative examples from their instructors.

Another justification from my end about the preceded presenter is that we both were unaware of the common subject being chosen. Though a common subject, our topic was entirely different: database model from previous presenter, database architecture from my side.

I have learnt from this evaluation that an instructor should adapt quickly according to the expectations and pedagogical needs of the students. This is something we can learn from their interactivity, response and gestures reflected in the body language.

Videotaping

This microteaching was a great opportunity for me to learn about myself as a teacher and as a presenter. I had never videotaped myself before and while watching me in the video was a very exciting experience. I picked up one of the idiosyncrasies that my evaluators might have rather ignored, is that I had stammered once while presenting a slide that might be because of time limitation pressure on my nerves. I will definitely look into this that how to cope with limited time during my lecture sessions. Though I gave two real-world examples, but now I think there should be a concluding example, just before the summary section. May be if time allows more, I would like to be more interactive with my audience by roaming inside the U-style classroom and by using the white board and marker.

Overall evaluation

[1] Svinicki, Marilla. “McKeachie’s teaching tips.” Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (2011)