Micro and Macro objectives of Educational Technology

Meaning and Definition of Micro-Teaching
• Meaning
Micro teaching is a procedure in which a student teacher practices teaching with a reduce number of pupils in a reduced period of time with emphasis on a narrow and specific teaching skill.

Definition
• “Microteaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and time” - D.W.Allen(1966)

• Microteaching is defined as a system of controlled practice that makes it possible to concentrate on specified teaching behaviour and to practice teaching under controlled conditions.
- D.W. Allen & A.W.Eve (1968)

• Microteaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in which a teacher teaches a small unit to a group of five pupils for a small period of 5 to 20 minutes.
- L.C. Singh (1977)

Objectives of Microteaching

• To enable teacher trainees to learn and assimilate new teaching skills under controlled conditions.
• To enable teacher trainees to master a number of teaching skills.
• To enable teacher trainees to gain confidence in teaching.
• Microteaching is a highly individualized training device
• Microteaching is an experiment in the field of teacher education which has been incorporated in the practice teaching schedule
• It is a student teaching skill training technique and not a teaching technique or method

Practicing one skill at a time
Reducing the class size to 5 – 10 pupil
Reducing the duration of lesson to 5 – 10 minutes
Limiting the content to a single concept
• immediate feedback helps in improving, fixing and motivating learning
• The student are providing immediate feedback in terms of peer group feedback, tape recorded/CCTV
• Microteaching advocates the choice and practice of one skill at a time

Micro-teaching Cycle

Plan: This involves the selection of the topic and related content of such a nature in which the use of components of the skill under practice may be made easily and conveniently. The topic is analyzed into different activities of the teacher and the pupils. The activities are planned in such a logical sequence where maximum application of the components of a skill is possible.

Teach: This involves the attempts of the teacher trainee to use the components of the skill in suitable situations coming up in the process of teaching-learning as per his/her planning of activities. If the situation is different and not as visualized (in the planning of the activities, the teacher should modify his/her behaviour ás per the demand of the situation in the Wlass. He should have the courage and confidence to handle the situation arising in the class effectively.

Feedback: This term refers to giving information to the teacher trainee about his performance. The information includes the points of strength as well as weakness relating to his/her performance. This helps the teacher trainee to improve upon his/her performance in the desired direction.

Re-plan: The teacher trainee replans his lesson incorporating the points of strength and removing the points not skillfully handled during teaching in the previous attempt either on the same topic or on another topic suiting to the teacher trainee for improvement.

Re-teach: This involves teaching to the same group of pupils if the topic is changed or to a different group of pupils if the topic is the same. This is done to remove boredom or monotony of the pupil. The teacher trainee teaches the class with renewed courage and confidence to perform better than the previous attempt.

Re-feedback: This is the most important component of Micro-teaching for behaviour modification of teacher trainee in the desired direction in each and every skill practice.

Time duration for the microteaching

Teach             : 6 Minutes.
Feedback       : 6 Minutes.
Re-Plan          :12 Minutes.
Re-Teach       : 6 Minutes.
Re-Feedback : 6 Minutes.

Objectives of Educational Technology

            Hilard Jason has stated the following as major objectives of educational technology keeping the teacher in view

·        Transmitting information

·        Serving as role models

·        Assisting the practice of specific skills

·        Contributing to the provision of feedback

Macro – level objectives of Educational Technology:

Objectives in terms of broad education goals

v To identify the educational needs and aspirations of the community.

v To develop an integrated curriculum and in general the structure of educable.

v To develop an integrated curriculum of arts, science and human values.

v To identify and locate material sources and strategies for achieving the desired aims of education.

v To develop specific models of teaching to bring about an improvement in the teaching – learning process.

Scope – classification and objectives of Educational Technology:

v To design, modify and develop appropriate equipment/aids suitable and relevant to the education process.

v To assist in providing vocational opportunities to the needy and deserving.

v  To manage the entire educational system encompassing, planning, implementation and evaluation phases.

Micro – level objectives of Educational Technology:

     To identify the educational needs of the learner.

     To determine and formulate classroom objectives in behavioral terms.

     To identify the contents of instruction and organize them in a proper sequence.

     To identify the necessary teaching learning materials.

     To predetermine the nature of interaction between subsystems i.e., students, teachers, teaching – learning material, content and methodologies.

     To identify human resources – students and teachers.

     To plan out teaching strategies, models and methods as per the needs and objectives.

     To evaluate the effectiveness of teaching strategy in terms of learning outcomes, i.e., behavioral changes in the students.

     To provide appropriate feedback to students as well as teachers.

     To modify the teaching – learning process on the basis of feedback received.

The micro and macro approaches of ICTs in Education

Besides the debates on the technologies that have been mentioned along the online process and during the face-to-face meeting — collaborative environments, social networking sites, social media, open content, mobile technologies, cloud computing, personal learning environments, augmented reality, smart classrooms, the semantic web, gestural-based computing, etc.,

Approaches in Education

Micro approach of ICTs in Education

The analysis of the impact of ICTs on the educational process — teaching and learning is how methodologies and the daily work will change when ICTs enter a specific educational process. A simple example is whether the dynamics of the classroom will change if kids come in with their laptops, in what direction and what will be the extent of the impact.

Macro approach of ICTs in Education

The analysis of the impact of ICTs on Education is an institution. In other words, how the arrival of ICTs will change the role of schools and universities and their teachers, their legitimacy, their added value and “business” plans, etc. A simple example is whether the abundance of (digital) information will reinforce informal education and render formal education out-dated and useless in the end.

Most people share the micro approach, less people share the macro approach, and but a very few try and combine both visions. Ironically enough, both the micros and the macros see each other as technophiles, techno-optimists or techno-utopians.

Macros think that micros do not “think out of the box” and just look at the technologies and their role in the tiny universe of the classroom, while forgetting about the wide (socioeconomic) context outside of it, which is what is, in fact ruling all changes.

Micros think that macros forget about pedagogy which is what the whole thing was about and focus instead on cool and trendy lucubration that have little to do with the real life of teachers and students.

Example: Digital natives

Let us take as a first example the case of digital natives (for the sake of simplicity, let us use the term to describe a set of students that grew using technology usually and comfortably). A micro approach will consider digital natives worth being taken into account for several reasons: they might have new (digital) competences that can be leveraged for learning; they might be able to retrieve information quicker than the teacher himself (with the related legitimacy issues for the latter); the might have or develop different cognitive strategies, hence teaching methodologies should be revised.

Macros will look at digital natives from a very different point of view: digital natives define their identities and their socialization strategies in new ways, thus affecting the role of all institutions (Education amongst them); their concept of success (enjoy what one is doing at work) might be different from baby-boomers (money and power) or generation-Xers (self-realization), thus requiring from education radically different roles and outcomes; they might have learnt new horizontal and networked communication techniques, then asking for horizontal and non-hierarchical relationships with peers, institutions and leaders (politicians, bosses, teachers…); etc.

Example: personal learning environments

The micro approach will probably compare personal learning environments with portfolios or e-portfolios in the best case and consider them a good thing for creativity, a good thing to track students’ progress, but a good piece of mess in the middle run and something that will require a good piece of effort on the teacher’s side to obtain digital skills and get monitoring tools.

For macros, PLEs are the (punk) revolution. PLEs enable autonomy, the richness of non-hierarchical connections, the raise of informal education. Combined with social media and open educational resources, PLEs capsize not the classroom but the entire education system.

Example: Smart classrooms

Micros find smart classrooms from digital blackboards to remotely controlling a telescope orbiting the Earth as the quintessence of ICTs in education. At last, “real” and “cheap” simulations are possible. Rivers of data flow into the classroom and can be managed at will. Is a teaching and learning experience on steroids, rich, visual, hands-on (without the inconvenience of things blowing up in your face or the expensive investments in bricks-and-mortal labs).

For macros, smart classrooms are, in most cases, but the perpetuation of the old-fashioned and out-dated way of teaching in a world that has changed.

Micros and macros

In the best of scenarios (e.g. digital natives), a technology or a technology-based trend or change is acknowledged by both sides. For different reasons, there is an agreement on the importance. In the worst of scenarios, not only disagreement but opposition is found.

The micro approach is more often adopted by older generations, deeply rooted or interested in the hard-core parts of pedagogy and educational methodologies… and sometimes not mastering or even ignoring some of the technologies they are talking about. On the other hand, amongst macros I have mainly found younger people, tech-savvy or simply geek, and often not coming from Pedagogy but Sociology, Communication Science, Economics, Information Science which shifts them towards context because they are not knowledgeable of the core issues.

Conclusion:                  

We absolutely need to bridge these two. In my opinion, the micro approach seriously lacks a good amount of e-awareness: they are many times refurbishing a ship without noticing that it is heading the highest waterfall. The macro approach sometimes surprisingly seems to forget the role itself of institutions and how these are many times more emergent systems than top-down designs, and as emergent systems, they are made of little pieces working with small but stone-written codes.