The "Micro Teach" - advice and guidance for teachers

Matt's Thunk - number 2
(Rather than a "thunk" - this is just a little bit of advice.)

Having sat through quite a host of "20 minute Micro Teaches" in FE (short sessions for teachers to show off their skills) , I thought I would share some advice; both as an observer and a student.

1. Introduce yourself to the class as soon as you can - then perhaps give them something to do while you set up ready for your micro teach (name badges, signs, a task sheet, a 1 minute chat about "X")
2. 20 minutes means 20 minutes - sort your resources out, take a deep breath and then signal you are ready to go . .  keep your eye on the clock
3. Be prepared to be the 6th teacher who has taught that same subject to the same group of learners that morning . . . . adapt it slightly, and turn it into a recap rather than a delivery session . . .  plan for the possibility of adaptation! 
4. Share a lesson plan & resources with the observers
5. Don't waste time on getting names from individuals unless you are going to use them. The classic waste of time is to ask everyone their name and then say "I probably won't remember any of them, so please forgive me"
6. HOWEVER, the students do like to be called their names! Why not ask everyone to write their name on a label, a post it on the desk, a little sign out of A4 paper - it shows that names are important - but you only have 20 minutes!!
7. The observers score you on certain things - so make sure you include these 2 things:

• introduce the lesson with some sort of aims, objectives e.g. what is the point of the next 20 minutes?
• sum up the lesson in the last few minutes - get the learners to recap & to check learning

1. Make sure you do the 2 things above in your session - even if you start to run out of time; the thing that gets forgotten most of the time is the recap - make sure you/your students sum up what you have learnt.
2. If you want to use IT, check the computer files will work - ring up in advance and ask.  ALWAYS have a back up - e.g. printouts, handouts, or something else up your sleeve
3. If you are not using IT, make sure any images or text can actually be seen by all in the classroom
4. Get students active . . . ask them to regroup while you set up . . . Active learning is a key thing to demonstrate . . . the students have probably been sat down for ages
5. Rather than spending ages loading up a powerpoint that just has 2 objectives on, write them down neatly on a piece of flip chart paper in BIG writing, and blue tack it to the board and get on with the lesson. Don't waste time on IT.
6. Engage the students in doing something write from the start
7. Question students to think further, outside the box and really challenge them to think hard - this is SO much better use of 20 minutes than ploughing through lots of content delivery.
8. Don't plan what you are going to do in the micro teach . . . plan what the learners are going to do, and check progress throughout
   

Some of you may have noticed that the numbering system above goes from 1-7, then 1-8.   This is a reminder that everything in the first 1-6 is what you should do for a micro teach . . . everything in the second 1-8 is what we should be doing in every lesson - regardless of length!

Good luck.  If you have any extra advice, add it in as a comment below.