Five Minutes That Changed the Way I See Teaching: My Micro-Teaching Journey

Hello to all of you!

It feels like I’m writing here after such a long time and honestly, I have so many things to share with you. So many new things have happened since my last post and I’ve been thinking about where I should start.

After completing my Master’s, I am currently doing my B.Ed. and it has been almost two months now. These two months have been quite different for me. I have learnt so many new things, experienced new situations and started looking at things from a different perspective.

So, I thought why not start by sharing one of the very first things I learnt in my B.Ed. journey about  MICRO-TEACHING

When I first heard the words “Micro-Teaching” it was just another new term for me, another vocabulary word that I added to my dictionary. At that time, I honestly thought that “It’s not a big deal at all.” I mean, it is just for a few minutes, right? But when I actually started learning about it, I was like, “Oh! So this is what it truly means!”

As I learnt more about Micro-Teaching, I understood that it is a way of developing different skills that are important for becoming a better teacher. Under Micro-Teaching, we learn different teaching skills and for each skill, we have to prepare a plan according to what we are going to practice.

What surprised me was that the actual Micro-Teaching session is only for five minutes. Just five minutes! But those five minutes are enough to make you realize how much attention goes into every little part of a lesson.

You have to organize your thoughts, prepare your content, decide how you are going to present it, and make sure that the particular skill you are practicing actually comes through. And honestly, experiencing this myself made me realize that those five minutes are not as simple as they sound.

Before this, I had never really thought about all these little things. I simply saw a teacher teaching a class, but Micro-Teaching made me notice what happens behind those few minutes.

And that was one of the first things in my B.Ed. journey that made me look at the teaching process from a completely different perspective.

So, this was my first experience with Micro-Teaching and today, I want to share my own experience with you guys!!

What I Learnt from My First Micro-Teaching Lecture:

So, before understanding Micro-Teaching, the first question that came to my mind was what is teaching?

Before joining B.Ed., I thought teaching was simply about explaining a topic to students. But as I started learning through Micro-Teaching and lesson planning, my understanding slowly changed. While thinking about how to introduce a topic, frame questions, and involve students, I realised that there is much more behind a simple classroom explanation.

I haven’t entered a real classroom as a teacher yet but these small experiences are already helping me understand that teaching is about preparation, connection, patience, and learning along with the students.

About Micro-Teaching:

it was Developed by Dwight W. Allen and his colleagues at Stanford University in 1963, micro-teaching was designed to help trainee teachers practice specific teaching skills in a simple and focused way.

From my first lecture on micro-teaching, I learnt that teaching is not just about delivering content but  it involves many small skills that work together to make learning effective. While learning skills such as motivation, questioning, illustration, and blackboard work, I understood how even small details can influence students’ attention and understanding. This lecture made me more aware of how a teacher speaks, asks questions, explains ideas, and presents a lesson. Most importantly, I learned that becoming a good teacher requires practice, observation, feedback, and continuous improvement.

Micro-Teaching Cycle:

The micro-teaching cycle is a systematic process through which a trainee teacher practises a particular teaching skill, receives feedback, and improves it.

The cycle is:

Planning → Teaching → Feedback → Re-planning → Re-teaching → Re-feedback

1. Planning – Prepare a short lesson focusing on one specific teaching skill.
2. Teaching – Teach the lesson to a small group for a short duration.
3. Feedback – Receive suggestions and observations from peers or the supervisor.
4. Re-planning – Modify the lesson according to the feedback.
5. Re-teaching – Teach the improved lesson again.
6. Re-feedback – Receive feedback again to understand the improvement

That’s it for the day! Now, if I somehow manage to find some free time between making lesson plans, preparing micro-teaching plans and surviving all kinds of B.Ed.-related stuff, I’ll definitely be back to share more of my experiences with you ! especially my adventures with all the skills of Micro-Teaching.😄

Until then, have a good day, take care, and wish me luck with those lesson plans! 😂

Bye, and see you soon!!