Use of Minicourse Instruction with Student Teachers of Educable Mentally Retarded Children

Abstract

The present research investigated whether randomly assigned student teachers who participated in minicourse instruction (experi mental group) would increase their use of skills taught by the minicourse when compared to student teachers who had not had mini course instruction. In addition, the research investigated whether the oral language of the EMR children in the classes of the experi mental group student teachers changed. Post-minicourse videotapes of E and C groups showed significant increases by the E group on two of 14 skills. Audiotapes of the children's language showed increases in only the use of action words. It is suggested that the mini course format will need revision in order to result in increased usefulness with preservice teachers. MICROTEACHING HAS BEEN suggested as a useful method for use in teacher training since it is real and because it focuses on the training of specific tasks (1). Because of these advantages, many teacher education pro grams have reported the use of microteaching in their pro grams (14). In fact, there is a proliferation of reports with out objectifying research describing diverse applications of microteaching (2, 3, 6, 7, 10) and in general an enthusiasm for the procedure. The research on microteaching, although not unequivocal, also demonstrates a general enthusiasm for the method (4, 8, 9, 11). The minicourses developed by Far West Laboratory incorporate microteaching into their format. The mini courses are self-instructional and are designed to teach one behaviorally-defined skill in four to six weeks to experi enced teachers. The final minicourse is a product of several revisions dictated by preliminary and field test results. Minicourse Two, Developing Oral Language in Children, which was used in this research, is one of approximately 18 minicourses produced by the Far West Laboratory. There were two purposes to the present research. The first was to investigate the use of the minicourse with pre service special education teachers. Research indicates that participation by experienced teachers does result in acquisition of the skills taught by the minicourse (5). Little information is available on the use of any of the minicourses with the preservice group, since the majority of field tests on the minicourse have been conducted within the public schools with inservice teachers. Likewise, there is little information on the use of the minicourse for training special education teachers, although Borg (5) suggested that some evidence exists to support the use of minicourses with teachers of high risk students and Stowitschek (13) investigated the use of Minicourse Five, Individualizing Instruction in Mathematics, with inservice teachers of educable mentally retarded children. The second purpose of this research was to investigate whether there was any change in the children's oral language following participation by their student teacher in Minicourse Two. Since the ultimate purpose in teaching any skill to a teacher is to improve her chances of making a change in child behavior, student outcomes must, in the end, be examined when determining the usefulness of minicourse instruction.