Micro Teach Two

On November 1st 2013 I delivered my second micro teach to my peer group. The purpose of this micro teach was to remove the reliance of PowerPoint presentations in delivering information to the class. I was a little apprehensive when I first realised that I would not be able to use PowerPoint as this would typically be my preferred method for delivering Psychology lectures. However, I quickly realised that the one thing I believe I'm very good at within Psychology is research. Therefore I decided I would base my second micro teach around the introduction of a programme that can be used for setting up experiments for research; Superlab 4.0.

Although I wasn't unconfident in my knowledge of how to use Superlab, I was slightly anxious that I wouldn't be able to break down the information to correctly explain the basics of Superlab that would be relevant for incorporating into any experiment.

When I arrived at university on the morning, the whole network was down! I couldn't even log on to the university computers! I started to panic as my whole micro teach circulated around technology and using the computers. I actually thanked my obsession for always having to arrive at any destination early as I was able to spend ten minutes trying to log on to each of the computers I planned to use myself instead of the students trying to do this when they arrived at 9am.

The same as my previous micro teach, I started the session feeling quite nervous. Upon reflection, I now know that I need to prepare contingency plans for any session that relies on technology; its not as reliable as people make out! I believe this micro teach went as well as I would have liked it to under the circumstances; me being flustered about the possibility of the computers crashing at any moment and having only half a class of students. I think the main criticism of my micro teach was that I didn't ask enough questions and I didn't interact enough with the students to gauge their understanding of this complex programme. This is definitely something I need to work on as I struggle sometimes with the conflict between letting people work uninterrupted and making sure that the reason they are working quietly isn't because they simply don't get anything I have explained!