Micro‑Teaching
Micro-teaching Short Course
The Microteaching Short Course is designed to offer students the opportunity to experience planning, developing and delivering a lesson in a mock classroom with students.
Goals of Micro-teaching Short Course
- To develop an understanding of effective teaching and learning strategies;
- To gain practical teaching preparation and teaching experience;
- To increase the confidence of your teaching skills;
- To receive and apply critical feedback to your teaching development; and
- To strengthen your ability to assess and evaluate teaching.
Priority of this short course will be given to those enrolled in the Certificate in University Teaching and Learning (CUTL). Upon successful completion, you will receive a Letter of Completion for your teaching dossier. Successful completion requires students to complete the self-directed Online Tutorial, and attend two sessions as an “instructor” and one session as JUST a “student” (a total of THREE micro-teaching sessions).
Registration
Registration is now closed.
You are required to complete the Self-Directed Tutorial by October 11th, 2023. Once you have completed the Tutorial, you will sign-up and attend 3 micro-teaching sessions (2 sessions as an instructor and 1 as a student).
Microteaching practice sessions will begin from October 17th. These teaching practice sessions will be held in-person in B400 classroom, in the basement of Killam Library.
What is micro-teaching & why is it important for your teaching development?
Micro-teaching was first developed in 1963 by Dr. Allen, who wanted to provide new instructors with the opportunity to practice their teaching in a safe and collaborative environment. Since its inception, micro-teaching has been used as a tool to provide individuals with the experience of teaching, and rich and constructive feedback that can be used to enhance their practice and overall teaching and learning development.
Micro-teaching consists of a small group of individuals, typically 8-10 students, who provide a short presentation (8-10 minutes) to their peers. Micro-teaching is a way to provide training to student-teachers that replicates the process of developing, planning, and implementing a lecture-like presentation. The process is iterative in order to provide students with the opportunity to not only receive feedback, but to apply that feedback to their teaching and demonstrate their development and learning through a re-teaching session.
In its simplest form, micro-teaching follows this cycle:
- Micro-lesson development, planning, and prep (Online Tutorial)
- Teach your 15-minute lesson to peers
- Receive lesson feedback
- Consider feedback, apply feedback to lesson, and re-plan based on feedback
- Re-teach your 15-minute lesson to a new set of peers
- Re-evaluation of lesson
The format of micro-teaching helps to improve both the content and skills of teaching, such as questioning, using examples to explain content, or summarizing a lesson effectively.
Micro-teaching Short Course Framework
What can you expect?
The entire Short Course teaching process is one of collaboration, experimentation, and collective learning. Not only will the experience of preparing and delivering a lesson help you develop your teaching skills but observing and assessing your peers’ lessons will also help you. Micro-teaching research has shown that even a 5-minute lesson is useful for practicing teaching skills.
While 15-minutes might seem short, the goal is for you to practice approaching an area of content with a specific goal and outcome. In a regular class period, you may be able to combine multiple concepts or skills within the same lesson plan, yet it is important for you to be able to break down your lessons into individual components.
The sessions are made up of 1 facilitator and up to 4 students and 4 instructors.
In a session, “instructors” will take turns “lecturing” for 15 minutes in front of peers who will act as "students". Immediately following a teaching presentation, peers will provide feedback (both written and verbal).
The Micro-teaching Sessions will be offered several times during the fall term. You can sign-up for these via BrightSpace starting mid-September. Each session is open to 4 “instructors” and up to 4 “students”.
PLEASE NOTE: A session requires a minimum of 2 instructors and 2 students to run.
Reminders will be sent a week in advance, and if there are not enough participants, the session will be cancelled, and you will be responsible for rescheduling an alternative session.