This state-of-the art paper summarizes the history of microteaching's development and its rationale, the many uses of microteaching, and the research evidence on microteaching--a training procedure which has become an established element in the programs of many colleges, universities, and school districts in the education of various groups of educational personnel, e.g., preservice teachers, inservice teachers, counselors, supervisors, and college teachers. Although the authors make the distinction between microteaching (a teaching situation scaled down in terms of time, numbers of students, number and specificity of teaching skills focused on, and offering the opportunity for immediate feedback in some form) and simulation (which uses the same process and the same teach-critique/reteach-critique cycle, but which, unlike microteaching, involves peer-group students, rather than "real" ones), they recognize that the latter is by far the more common practice in preservice education. Emphasis of the research summary is on empirically based, rather than experientially based, studies of behavioral change and on areas related to both teaching skills and training protocols in which a great deal of further research is needed. Included with the document is a list and explanation of 15 specific teaching skills and an annotated bibliography. (JES)