This report describes the findings of a funded collaborative microteaching project involving pre-service post-primary science teachers and their tutors from Stranmillis University College Belfast and Trinity College Dublin. Microteaching is a recognised learning activity included within initial teacher education programmes around the world as a means to effectively develop the professional practice of student teachers. A number of studies have reported its many benefits in a range of contexts (Bell, 2007; Benton-Kupper, 2001; Van der Westhuizen , 2015; Amobi 2005). The aim of this research was to identify which particular features of microteaching pre-service teachers find the most useful and explore how might microteaching sessions be designed and carried out so as to maximise learning. At a time of much change and debate within government regarding policy on initial teacher education, both in Ireland and in the UK, we feel the project’s focus on the pedagogy of initial teacher education most timely. If students are to make the most of extended placements in schools, they must be both competent and comfortable in the task of evaluating their own, and other’s practice. We see on-campus microteaching as a way to achieve this and ensure that our students have the best of both worlds. The recently published ‘Carter review of Initial Teacher Training [ITT]’ in England (Carter, 2015) states that pre-service teachers must get the opportunity to observe good and outstanding practice and that they must be taught ‘how to observe effectively,’ (p39). This study explores how microteaching may be arranged to support these goals and therefore constitute ideal practice.

Developing pre-service teachers’ perceptions of, and disposition to, reflective practice continues to be the cornerstone of teacher education programmes across the globe. The widespread access to digital video technology has led to an increase in studies which highlight the potential for using video in initial teacher education ((Knight, Pedersen & Peters, 2004; Eilan & Poyas, 2009). Although video has always been a key component of the practice of microteaching, the exact nature of the particular affordances which video provides is worth further exploration. . We have developed a Vygotskyan model, adapted from previous work on coteaching (Murphy et al, 2015), to describe how microteaching can be such an effective tool for pre-service teacher learning and examined how including video analysis within the ‘cycle of reflection’ may transform pre-service teachers’ practice and disposition with respect to reflection. The characteristics of ideal practice as recommended by the pre-service teachers identify the practices and protocols which enrich activity within both the VSZPD and the video informed cycle of reflection.

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