Microteaching workshops allow educators to practice their content area teaching skills and build greater reflective teaching in a comfortable environment. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage participants to think more specifically about the goals of their content area teaching in terms of how students will learn the information presented. Microteaching involves thinking about teaching style as well as content.
Step 1 – Visit your field trip site and complete your field trip plan.
Step 2 – Think about how you will prepare students to take the field trip. How will you build background knowledge?
Step 3 – Using at least one primary source, write a lesson plan that uses strategies we have explored during the semester to build background knowledge before the field trip. Follow the complete UR Lesson Plan format. You should design your lesson for a full 45 minutes, but know you will only teach 20-25 minutes of your lesson plan.
Step 4 – Come to class with all materials prepared to teach a portion of your lesson. Use the following outline to guide your time:
- Context (2 minutes) – Briefly describe the teaching context. Who are your students? What grade are they in? What topics have they studied? What is their prior knowledge and preparation for this lesson? What field trip are you preparing them for?
- Lesson Delivery (20-25 minutes) – Lead your group through a portion of the lesson. This is DIRECT instruction. Do not spend your time explaining what you would do in the classroom.
- Closing Comments (2-3 minutes) – Close the activity and answer any participants’ questions.
- Reflective Feedback (10 minutes) – Engage in group discussion of the lesson.
This is meant to be a low-risk, highly supportive environment for you to practice your teacing and obtain useful feedback from your peers.
Group Process
Once your group has gathered, introduce yourselves and decide the order in which you will teach.
Classmates watching and participating as students during the microteaching session will complete a microteaching critical analysis form. In completing this form it is important to consider these guidelines for giving effective feedback:
- Start with at least one piece of positive feedback to reinforce effective elements.
- Be specific and identify a moment or feature that worked well or poorly for you as a learner. If you can, explain why it was effective or not.
- If you don’t notice anything in particular, look to the performance criteria on the back of the microteaching form to help you focus on individual components of the teaching.
The person who conducted the microteaching should begin the oral evaluation process by offering a self-evaluation, noting areas that appeared to be effective and ineffective. The remaining time should be devoted to a group discussion of the microteaching experience. Upon completion of the discussion, microteaching forms should be handed to the presenter.
Personal Reflection
Upon completion of microteaching, you will reflect on the experience and describe how it went. Think about these questions as you construct your response.
- How did you prepare for this experience? (Choosing an activity, preparing for the delivery, etc.)
- In what ways did you adapt materials and resources for your microteaching?
- What was the most challenging part of this assignment? Why?
- Which part(s) of the microteaching went well and which part(s) did not go so well?
- What could you have done differently? Or what would you like to have tried instead?
- Summarize the feedback you received. Which was most helpful and why?
- What did you learn about your own teaching in this experience? How did you feel about your performance?
- What is the most important idea you are taking away from this experience?
What to Submit
Upload your lesson plan, teaching notes, and reflection to your Google folder.