Microteaching – the delivery

I pulled the cards and had this weird feeling they were perfect! I was super nervous that I’d pull some cards and feel like they didn’t lend themselves to the task – would I cheat and repull? who knows because it didn’t happen but I’d like to think not

I thought carefully about the language and not projecting too much into the task, I thought some people would ask for more context or perhaps even want me to give them a scenario to work from – but they didn’t and I wouldn’t have anyway. The point is to do that part yourself, its quite open which I know some people are wary of but it’s a reflection tool right? so if I give you my interpretation or my experience in a scenario how can you truly be reflecting on your teaching practise. So the only context is the cards represent a scenario and and student experience. The rest was up to the individuals.

How it went?

It fitted well into 20 minutes and keeping the slides minimal was definitely a good shout. Halfway through we had to split the groups because of timing (fine) so I ended up thrust into a new group having not seen any of their sessions- no different to going first really but I’d opted to not go first for a reason! So I was pretty nervous but to be honest it’s my natural disposition even after teaching for a long time in one form or another. A line manager once told me I’d get used it, no no, we’re 7 years in and I still get the same nevous energy so don’t think it’s inexperience!

Anyway nerves aside I was on the whole pleased with how it went, something really interested happened though which I wasn’t expecting. One participant seemed to take exception to it. They made the assumption or decision that this was about a negative situation. I didn’t say that, I said very little about what the student experience was. And in fact when I pulled the cards I didn’t read them as the student having a terrible time at all. So that was interesting to unpack. This person having made that decision that the student was struggling – maybe it was the tears card? then seemed a bit offended by the entire task, quite dismissive, as if I was implying this was a session on how to empathise with students – which it wasn’t. Their response during the part where I asked them to share their reflections was mostly them saying – look we’ve all been in a situation where a student thinks their world is ending and it isn’t our responsibility to fix it, we have to hand it back to them. Which ended up with us having a really interesting conversation (imo) on projecting our assumptions onto a students experience. Was it because that academic had experienced a lot of a scenarios where students are struggling and looking for an answer from academics? looking for support they don’t have the time or bandwidth to give each student? Was it the timing – in the height of a global pandemic where lots of us saw our roles shifting into counselling and mental health territory? who knows, but I thought I was interesting that the response felt quite hostile, I want to create environments for learning where you enter not feeling like you’re being shamed for not knowing, or have something to prove but where it’s open and understanding.

It felt two fold

1. like I had unwittingly created the exact opposite environment for this person?
2. Like they were trying to belittle the task, like yeah yeah we all know what empathy is thanks – and had therefore fundamentally not understood the desired outcome of the task. Which really wasn’t about empathy and was less about the student and more about them as a teacher.

Was I patronising? had I arrived in this space attempting to show a tool I use for reflection, a tool that can be light hearted or serious, even fun! but instead implied that they didn’t know how to look out for their students and needed me to show them how to do that? I hope not!

It wasn’t all bad though! I got some really touching feedback from another person who was having really bad technical issues who not only couldn’t deliver their own session but could also only see the chat and not my slides.

The feedback:
I’ve learned something from you today. I could approximately 1/10th of what is being said and shared all afternoon, you were the only one who pulled me in via the chat. It is very isolating and you actually did something about it. So I will practise this with my students….very caring.