ABSTRACT
Teacher education programs have long been criticized for separating theory and practice. This perception often comes from teacher candidates themselves who vehemently complain that while they read and talk about teaching in their university-based coursework, they have few opportunities to engage in the activities of actual teaching until the culminating internship/practicum, often near the end of the degree program. The microteaching simulation, in which teacher candidates plan and teach “mini-lessons” in front of their peers as a component of a methodology course, has been the standard practice for bridging this theory/practice divide. Originating in the 1960s, microteaching emerged out of a technicist view of teaching with the promise of greater efficiency in the training of teachers. The Stanford Model (Politzer, 1969) ran novice teachers through a cycle of plan, teach, observe, and critique short micro-lessons (5-10 minutes) followed by a new cycle of re-plan, re-teach, re-observe, and re-critique. The content of each cycle consisted of a very specific set of teaching behaviors that were first modeled, then practiced, critiqued, and then practiced again. At that time, teaching was conceptualized as consisting of a discrete set of behaviors that could be broken down into its smallest parts and studied, practiced, and mastered largely through imitation and repetition. In addition, microteaching was deemed to be a more efficient way of acclimatizing novices to the “real world” of teaching, as opposed to the lengthy apprenticeship model of “sink or swim” once they entered schools.
