Developing Teaching Skills with Microteaching

Microteaching offers prospective teachers the opportunity to learn teaching skills, to study their own teaching, and to study the teaching of others. Microteaching has been described as a scaled-down teaching situation, involving 3 to 10 teacher education students in a 5- to 20-minute lesson, which is often videotaped for future reference. Four main skill areas should be incorporated in a microteaching program: (1) questioning skills, including fluency in asking probing, higher order, and divergent questions; (2) skills aimed at increasing individual student participation; (3) creating student involvement through set induction, stimulus variation, and closure, all of which help to provide a meaningful organization to the lesson; and (4) lesson presentation skills and methodologies. The trainee supervisor relationship is very important to the microteaching experience. Studies have shown the impact and importance of supervisors\u27 expectations and feedback. Research has also noted the popularity of microteaching in teacher education programs, due to proven effectiveness in imparting teaching skills