Module 4 :Training in Teaching Skills 105

Module 4 :Training in Teaching Skills (10hrs)

4.1. Micro-teaching: Objectives, and Phases of teaching

4.2. Micro-teaching skills- Skill of reinforcement, skill of fluency in questioning, skill of stimulus variation

4.3. Link Practice: its meaning and significance

4.4 Teacher Evaluation – Criteria for evaluating Teaching Competence

Module 4 :Training in Teaching Skills (10hrs)

4.1. Micro-teaching: Objectives, and Phases of teaching

Unit – 3 Training in Teaching Skills

3.1) Micro Teaching Practice in three skills- Stimulus Variation, Questioning, Reinforcement

3.2) Teacher Evaluation – Criteria for evaluating Teaching Competence

 Micro-teaching:

 A scaled down teaching encounter in a class size and class time in which a teacher teaches a small unit  to a small group of 5 to 10 pupils for a small period of 5 to 10 minutes. First adopted in Stanford University, USA in1961 by Dwight W Allen and co-workers. Small group-Short duration-Small piece of content -Concentrates at a time on a single sub skill of the major skill. Training procedure for teacher preparation which provides trainees with feedback about their performance immediately after completion of a micro lesson to acquire new teaching skills and to refine old ones.

Definition : A scaled down teaching encounter in a class size and class time (Allen)

Why use microteaching?

Microteaching has several benefits. Because the lessons are so short (usually 5 to 10 minutes), they have to focus on specific strategies.  This means that someone participating in a microteaching session can get feedback on specific techniques he or she is interested in exploring.  In a pre-service or training situation, participants can practice a newly learned technique in isolation rather than working that technique into an entire lesson (Vare, 1993).

Objectives: 1.To enable teacher- trainees to learn and assimilate new teaching skills under controlled conditions.2.To enable teacher- trainees to gain confidence in teaching and to master a number of skills by dealing with a small group of pupils

Characteristics:Scaled down teaching -Less complex than regular teaching - Involves lesser number of students, usually 5 to 10 -Duration is short-about 5 to 10 minutes.

Phases of Micro Teaching procedure: 1.Knowledge Acquisition phase: (Observe and Analyze) 2.Skill acquisition Phase :(Prepare and Practice)3.Transfer Phase: (Evaluate and Transfer)

Steps:1.Defining the skills 2.Demonstration of the skill 3.preparation of a micro lesson plan 4.Teaching of the lesson 5. Feedback  6,Re-planning, re-teaching and re-feedback sessions 7. Repetition of plan, teach, feedback,re-plan,re-teach and re-feedback cycle till the skill is mastered.

Methods : After practicing 3 sub skills separately , the trainee may combine all the 3 sub skills in a lesson of 10 minutes. Then practices another set of 3 sub skills separately and links them. Then combines all the 6 sub-skills in a single lesson of 15 minutes. The procedure is repeated till all the sub skills are combined in a macro lesson of 40 minutes and teaching a full class

4.2. Micro-teaching skills- Skill of reinforcement, skill of fluency in questioning, skill of stimulus variation

1.Skill of Stimulus Variation: Involves deliberate change in the stimuli presented by the teacher for the purpose of drawing, stimulating and maintaining the attention of learners throughout the class .Variation in the stimuli helps in avoiding monotony and in generating interest among students which in turn makes learning effective.

Components: Teacher Movements , Teacher gestures, Change in speech pattern, Change in interaction style, Focusing, Pausing , Oral-visual switching

Skill of Stimulus Variation

                         

A teacher uses hand gestures, head and body movements, verbal statements etc in order to draw the attention of her students and to sustain it. The behaviour of the teacher is a stimulus to the pupils.  However continued use of stimulus may induce disinterest and inattention on account of so many psychological and physiological factors. The teacher must be skilled in securing and sustaining the attention of her pupils.  Stimulus variation deals with a change or variation in the stimuli available in the learner’s environment.   The teacher should know, when, how and what to change so that her students are attentive.  Thus the skill of stimulus variation may be defined as a set of behaviour for bringing about a desirable change in variation in the stimuli which can be used to secure and sustain the student’s attention towards classroom activities.

Components

1.      Teacher’s movement

2.      Gestures

3.      Changes in speech pattern

4.      Focusing

5.      Change in interaction style

6.      Pausing

7.      Aural-visual Switching

8.      Physical involvement of the student

Micro –Teaching Lesson Plan

Name of the teacher             :                                                                      Topic: The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe                       

Subject                                   : English                                                        Time: 7 minutes                   

Standard                                : VIII                                                              Date    :

           

Teacher Talk /Activity	Pupil Talk / Activity	Components of the Skill
The teacher enters the class and creates rapport.	The students greet the teacher.	Teacher movement Gestures
Have you had any adventurous journey in your life?	No	Change in speech pattern
Have you read adventure stories? (Shows some books dealing with adventure stories.)		Aural-Visual Switching
Now I am going to describe an interesting voyage made by a person.  Are you eager to know the incident that happened during his journey?	They listen carefully.	Verbal focusing
The title of the story is ‘The Adventure of Robinson Crusoe’. From this title itself, we can understand that the main character of the story is Robinson and that he is an adventurous person who loves sea voyages.		Change in speech pattern
The teacher writes the title on the blackboard.	They observe the name of the lesson.	Aural-visual switching
Even though his parents were not in favour of his wish, with the help of his friends he used to go for voyages. Have you acted against your parent’s wishes?	Yes / No	Change in speech pattern
. (Shows the picture of a man who is on a voyage in the sea.) During the trip, his ship got wrecked but he managed to reach London.		Aural-visual switching
(Shows the picture of the wrecked ‘Titanic’.) What happened to the ‘Titanic’?	It sank/ was hit by an ice-berg.	Aural-visual switching Pausing
The teacher asks two of the students to act out the events that happened on the ‘Titanic’ before it sank.	The students act out the scene.	Aural-visual switching Physical involvement of the students
Even though he had enough plantations to work in, he still wished to go on voyages.	Silence	Teacher Movement
With the help of his friend, he sailed toGuinea in Africa.  But this was a disastrous trip.	The students get interested to know what happens next.	Pausing
Do you think that he escaped from it?	Students give different responses.	Change in speech pattern
Well, our hero managed to escape from disaster. Robinson    reached an island.  It seemed that no one lived on that island.  He collected as much food and materials as he could for his survival and found a suitable place beside a hill to build a home.  When he began to feel lonely, he kept himself active by engaging in hunting.		Teacher movement
(Asks the students to do the role play of a hunter.)		Physical involvement of the students
One day he found the footprint of a cannibal and was terrified.  He armed himself with his gun and weapon.	Become attentive	Gestures
Do you know who a cannibal is ?	No
They are man eaters, that is, people who eat human flesh. (Shows a picture)	Observes the picture	Aural-visual switching
The cannibals kept bringing many prisoners to their place and it was Robinson who took up the initiative to save them. How did Robinson help the prisoners?	By rescuing them from the cannibals	Focusing
One day he saw an English ship which had anchored on the shore with many prisoners.  While rescuing them, he understood that one of the prisoners was the captain of the English ship.  He made an agreement with the captain that if he took him to his country, he would rescue the captain and his crew.		Gestures
Do you think that they will succeed in their mission?	The students respond actively	Focusing
Of course, our hero overcame all the hardships. Finally he bid a hearty farewell to his island.		Change in speech pattern
What did you understand from the story?	Life should be adventurous. It will help to face many challenges and pave a new path for a better life.	Pause Focusing

OBSERVATION SCHEDULE

Sl.No.	Components	Tallies	Remarks
			Poor 0-2	Satisfactory 3-4	Good 5-6	Very good 7-8	Excellent 9 and above
1.	Teacher movements
2.	Gestures
3.	Change in interaction style
4.	Focusing
5.	Changes in interaction style
6.	Pausing
7.	Aural-visual switching
8.	Physical involvement of students

 Suggestions

1.       Has to keep the students actively involved.

2.      Should use meaningfully the skill of pausing.

Ref:

http://etefmgu.blogspot.in/

2.Skill of Reinforcement: Exhibited by teachers by their reactions to the responses and actions of pupils.Based on the principle of feedback followed by immediate rewarding of desirable or correct responses and actions. Reactions of the teacher that provide encouragement , approval and recognition of pupil-responses would strengthen the related correct responses and actions. Reaction of the teacher, that are discouraging would weaken pupil responses involved in the learning process. Teacher should manage his reactions to pupil responses with skill. Components: Positive verbal reinforcement, Verbal expressions ,Positive non-verbal reinforcement ,Negative verbal, Negative non-verbal, Denial of reinforcement, Inappropriate use of reinforcement

3.Skill of Probing Questions :Questions calling for original and deep level responses. Components: Prompting, Seeking further information, Refocusing, Increasing critical awareness, Redirection.

4.3. Link Practice: its meaning and significance

INTEGRATION OF SKILLS: INTEGRATION OF SUB SKILLS INTO THE MAJOR SKILL-LINK PRACTICE / LINK LESSONS

Merits: Teacher trainees perform well after M T training. Employs a training strategy specially meant for the purpose of developing skills. Helps accomplish specific teacher competencies. Teaching practice gain a higher degree of organisation ( Time, No. of students etc.. could be controlled).Helps gain deeper knowledge due to feedback and re-plan, re-teach cycles. More effective in modifying teacher behavior.  Helps in developing important teaching skills (questioning, providing reinforcement, increasing pupil participation).Effective technique for transfer of teaching competencies to classroom situations. Provides many opportunities to trainees to build up desired pattern of behaviour in a non-threatening set up.

Limitations:Skill oriented-content is not emphasized, Emphasises specific skills ;but may result in the neglect of integrated skills-Covers only a few specific skills. May raise administrative problems while arranging micro lessons

4.4 Teacher Evaluation – Criteria for evaluating Teaching Competence

TEACHER EVALUATION

Qualities of a good English language teacher: A teacher of English should have a number of qualities. These qualities can be broadly divided in two areas:

                i) Personal qualities, and

                  ii) Competency- based qualities

Personal qualities: The personal qualities of a teacher include genuineness, honesty, compassion, adaptability, etc must come in the forefront.

Competency- based qualities: Competency is defined as knowledge, skills and judgment which the teacher has to demonstrate at a pre- determined proficiency level. He has to be conscious about three factors – the student, the subject and the methodology. The teacher should be linguistically minded and should love his subject and be eager to sharpen his previous experience, enrich his knowledge and to explore new prospective areas and trends in education. He should be resourceful. The teacher should not be a mere dispenser of knowledge. Instead, he should act as a social engineer producing good citizens.

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Competency-based learning or Competency Based Education and Training is an approach to teaching and learning more often used in learning concrete skills than abstract learning. It differs from other non-related approaches in that the unit of learning is extremely fine grained. Rather than a course or a module every individual skill/learning outcome, known as a competency, is one single unit. Learners work on one competency at a time, which is likely a small component of a larger learning goal. The student is evaluated on the individual competency, and only once they have mastered it do they move on to others. After that, higher or more complex competencies are learned to a degree of mastery and isolated from other topics. Another common component of Competency-based learning is the ability to skip learning modules entirely if the learner can demonstrate they already have mastery. That can be done either through prior learning assessment or formative testing.

For example, people learning to drive manual transmission might first have to demonstrate their mastery of "rules of the road", safety, defensive driving, parallel parking etc. Then they may focus on two independent competencies: "using the clutch, brake with right foot" and "shifting up and down through the gears". Once the learners have demonstrated they are comfortable with those two skills the next, over-arching skill might be "finding first: from full stop to a slow roll" followed by "sudden stops", "shifting up" and "down shifting". Because this is kinetic learning the instructor likely would demonstrate the individual skill a few times then the student would perform guided practice followed by independent practice until they can demonstrate their mastery.

Competency-based learning is learner‑focused and works naturally with independent study and with the instructor in the role of facilitator. Learners often find different individual skills more difficult than others. This learning method allows a student to learn those individual skills they find challenging at their own pace, practising and refining as much as they like. Then, they can move rapidly through other skills to which they are more adept.

Most other learning methods use summative testing, competency-based learning requires mastery of every individual learning outcome making it very well suited to learning credentials in which safety is an issue.

What it means to have mastered a competency depends on the learning domain (subject matter). In subject matter that could effect safety, it would be usual to expect complete learning that can be repeated every time. In abstract learning, such as algebra, the learner may only have to demonstrate that they identify an appropriate formula, for example, 4 of 5 times since when using that skill in the next competency, resolving a formula, will usually allow opportunity the learner to discover and correct their mistakes.

It is important to understand that this learning methodology is common in many kinetic and/or skills based learning, but is also sometime applied to abstract and/or academic learning for students who find themselves out-of-step with their grade, course or program of study.

Competency based learning is an educational technique that can be applied in many fields and learning environments. It is an area of pedagogical research and is not adequately understood in one, single learning domain,

The rest of this article focuses one application of competency-based learning in corporate environments and is heavily weighted to a Human Resources perspective.

Once organizations have used a competency dictionary to define the competency requirements for groups, areas, or the whole organization, it becomes possible to develop learning strategies targeted to close major gaps in organizational competencies and to focus learning plans on the business goals and strategic direction for the organization.

Best practices

Competency profiles assist in effective learning and development by identifying the behaviours, knowledge, skills and abilities that are necessary for successful performance in a job. Employees can assess their competencies against those required for their own job, or for another job in which they are interested, and then take steps to acquire or improve any necessary competencies.

Competencies support learning by:

·         Focusing learning on the critical competencies needed for success in the job and organization

·         Providing standards for measuring employee performance and capabilities

·         Providing the framework for identifying learning options/curriculum/programs to meet employee and organizational needs

·         Supporting effective forecasting of organizational, as well as project-related learning requirements

·         Providing standards for determining how well learning has occurred, both at the individual and organizational level

Some of the common benchmark competency-based practices in learning and development are:

Assessments against competencies – Once the competencies have been defined for particular job / roles, it becomes possible for employees and others to assess the employee’s competencies against those required for current or future roles within the organization. This assessment can occur in the following ways:

Self-assessment – Typically, the behavioral indicators for the competencies and proficiency levels needed within the target role / job are used as the standard for assessing the performance of the employee using a common rating scale (e.g., five-point scales from Never to Always) for assessing each indicator. The results are compiled and a report is provided that includes the results for all competencies, highlighting both employee strengths as well as competencies requiring improvement. This information can then be used to support the development of an individual learning plan (see below).

Multi-source / 360 – Multi-source or 360 feedback is similar to the self-assessment process except there is more than one evaluator. The process includes at a minimum the employee and their supervisor, and can include others with whom the employee interacts within the workplace (e.g., peers, team members, clients both within and outside the organization, reporting employees; etc.). Once again, a report is prepared on the feedback reults to allow the employee, supervisor and / or others (e.g., coach / mentor; learning advisor; etc.) to target learning and development efforts to the particular employee’s needs.

Assessment through other methods – Competency assessments can be accomplished through a wide variety of other methods, including those typically used in a selection process (see Recruitment & Selection section), such as: competency-based behavioural interviews; in-baskets; role-plays and simulations; track record / portfolio reviews; etc. As well, formalized assessment is often included as a component of employee development programs for the purpose of assessing the employee’s base skills / competencies going into the program, progress in development at any point, as well as level of success at the end of the program.

Individual learning plans – Once employee strengths and areas for development have been defined, it becomes possible to develop individual learning plans targeted to particular learning needs. At a minimum, tools to support this process include a set of instructions or guide for completing a learning plan as well as a standard learning plan form.

Learning resources catalogued by competency – Organizations often support employee learning by providing a catalogue of learning options organized by competencies, often incorporating a variety of learning options, such as: on-the-job assignments / activities; books and written reference material; courses / workshops / conferences; videos / DVDs; e-learning; etc. This information is often delivered via internet or intranet with links to other sites for additional information or course registration.

Aggregate reports on organizational gaps in competencies – Individual gaps in competency requirements can be consolidated into group reports, and decisions can be made on the best strategies for closing the organizational gaps in the most fiscally prudent and cost-effective manner

Program design / development – Having defined the competencies and behaviours required for success in a particular role it becomes possible to target the design of curriculum and development programs to address these requirements.

Learning evaluation / validation – Competencies that have been identified for roles within the organization can serve as the standards or criteria for determining the level of success of learning interventions.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING TEACHING COMPETENCE

Sl.No.	Dimensions	Component	Evaluation
			1	2		3		4		5
1.	Subject competency	a) Resourcefulness:  knowledge of content, additional information, clarification of doubts, creativity.
		b) Linking with life situations: citing examples, integrating values, applications, issues.
		c)Sequential arrangement of content: logical, simple to hard , concrete to abstract, known to unknown.
		d) Ability for consolidation: consolidation of major points, providing opportunities to link new  knowledge to new situations, linking with previous knowledge , linking with future learning.
2.	Communication	a)Stimulus variation: change in speech pattern, focusing, pausing, oral- visual switching.
		b)Fluency of language: grammatically correct, direct and straight forward, without unnecessary words, continuity in speech.
		c)Voice modulation: intonation, change in speech pattern, pause, pitch variation
		d)Audibility: loud, clear, distinct, recognizable
3.	Instructional Strategies	a)Innovation:-appropriate, effective, creative, novelty
		b)Interactions: teacher-pupil, pupil-teacher, inter pupil interactions and intra pupil interaction
		c)Progress of lesson: connecting  ideas, continuity, concrete to abstract, active participation
		d)Originality: unique, thought provoking, resourceful, inspiring
4.	Use of learning materials	a)Skill in handling of aids:  chalk board, charts models , equipments.
		b)Novelty : innovative, adequate, improvised, arousing interest
		c)Effectiveness: adequate, appropriate, impressive, successful
		d)Appropriateness: relevant, proper, timely, suitable

Sl.No.	Dimensions	Component	Evaluation
			1	2	3	4	5
5.	Class management	a) Time management:  organize the lesson, transacting within the stipulated time, closure of the lesson, no un-necessary pauses.
		b)Active participation:  students - involvement, cooperative, contributions of students, share
		c) Guided activity: student teacher – help, leadership, directions, tips.
		d) Classroom climate :  democratic, open and friendly, no fear, discipline
6.	Evaluation	a) continuous evaluation :, questioning in between, observing students participation, eliciting ideas,  appropriateness of the method
		b)Suitability of the tool: appropriate, relevant, objectivity, encouraging
		c)Modification of strategies according to responses, adaptability , flexibility, tactfulness
		d)continuity, sequence, comprehensive, motivating
7.	Motivation	a)Reinforcement : suited to age level , adequate, supportive, constructive
		b)Developing, maintaining interest, inspiring enthusiastic
		c)Fostering student participation, supportive, , encouraging, constructive criticisms
		d) Catering to diverse needs, individual attention, eye contacts, responding to students queries.
8.	Teacher	a)Appearance: pleasant, dignified, modesty in dress, active
		b)Movements:- judicious, appropriate to direct attention, normal gestures, controlled
		c) Teacher-Pupil interaction:- healthy, friendly, thought provoking,  proper.
		d) Facilitator, guide, friend, philosopher.