Learning to micro teach in pairs
On 20 October 2014, Tauseef Farook and myself were invited to a series of micro-teaching sessions to learn how to deliver a micro-teaching lesson. Tauseef and I had never met before but we were both attending this live session at WizIQ, hosted by Dr. Nellie Deutsch, from IT4ALL.
It was an amazing experience, as it clearly showed the beauty of virtual professional life. How could you meet other teachers from the other end of the world and get ready to teach with them, apart from online? No other way! That’s the perfect added value of online teaching.
The session started with an overall introduction by the host, and then the attendants were just paired up to practice in breakout rooms for 15 minutes.
During that quarter of an hour, Tauseef and I discovered quite a few things about each other and discussed about challenges and benefits of micro teaching in pairs, as well as resources to acccomplish that type of teaching successfully. That was the proposal. After that time, we were taken back to the main room where the rest of the session was taking place.
And this is how Tauseef and I met, first time ever, and we discovered that both of us are ESL teachers, into ICT, and love our profession. We very quickly decided that one would tip at the chat room while the other would write conclusions on the whiteboard. That was the first outcome of micro-teaching in pairs: agreement!
Now, we are inviting you to have a look at our tips and conclusions, drafted in 15 minutes by two teachers who had not even known of the existence of each other until 20 October 2014.
Isn’t it awesome? I thought it was fully enjoyable and inspiring!
So, first, the challenges to micro teach in pairs: reaching agreements, having a mind to bring together our different approaches. Finding a common topic to teach. Finding common time together, skipping time zones and so on, to plan, schedule, create, and so forth, and finally, finding a good way to engage and motivate learners in our online paired up lessons.
The benefits of micro teaching in pairs are quite obvious: team work is better, and richer than single teaching. Two minds are bound to produce double work than one. The workload is shared, so it runs more smoothly and we can support each other, putting into the lesson the best skill each one has.
Apart from that we can encourage each other if one might feel down and build the confidence for weak points to get stronger.
As regards resources to get ready for micro teaching in pairs and presenting, Google drive is a good option, to edit and create together, as it does not matter where you are based, you can still work together as if it were real time. That leads us to the design of presentations, tutorials and so forth inside our common Drive. And, finally, offering students real life situations, like the one we have just lived, is a good chance to make them understand the value of that being taught.
Thanks a million for your attention and to Dr. Nellie for the chance of finding each other and enlarging our professional teaching community.
Now, on 24 October, we feel ready to present our conclusions to the world. Come and join us!
Hi Maria!
ResponderEliminarGlad to read our thoughts and ideas in an organized format!