Instructor Effectiveness

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Sep 13, 8:55 am, Dudley Henriques wrote:


The exact opposite is the "aura" the instructor should be projecting to
a student. You don't have to constantly make the student aware of how
superior YOU are. They already assume that or they wouldn't have gotten
in the airplane with you.

Its funny but people just assume you must he a "super pilot" if you
are a CFI. I guess to the student pilot a CFI seems like Yeager. I can
say that I've never felt like a student needed me to "prove" my flying
ability. I can see how some CFIs could get a big head because of all
this. However, all it takes is to sit in the left seat with good CFI
to break you back down.
This is also where decision making starts. Because a student usually
looks up to his first CFI he will tend to emmulate your decision
making. The CFI who likes to buzz farm houses will have a student who
thinks that once he's a good pilot he should start buzzing farm
houses. I just can't say enough about the importance of being
professional. If you act like a true professional in the cockpit you
will have students who believe that they need to be professional in
the cockpit.

-Robert
Exactly correct.
I think I learned more about flying by teaching people to fly than I
could ever have learned in any other venue in aviation. It's absolutely
amazing how much you learn while finding different ways to teach a
student pilot. The more you search for the "right way" to present
something, the more you learn about that "something" yourself :-))

You're right about a student's first CFI. The initial hours spent before
solo are among the most important a pilot will ever spend in an airplane.
The habit patterns formed during this initial exposure to an instructor
can very well follow a pilot throughout their entire tenure in aviation.

After a lifetime in aviation, I'm STILL learning!!!

--
Dudley Henriques

On 2008-09-14, Dudley Henriques wrote:
I think I learned more about flying by teaching people to fly than I
could ever have learned in any other venue in aviation.

This is most of the reason I'm pursuing the rating: I think it'll make me a
better pilot.

What you're seeing is the same thing they learned in medicine a long time
ago. The standard method for learning something new there is "see one, do
one, teach one". The last step drives the lesson home.
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC

Jay Maynard wrote:
On 2008-09-14, Dudley Henriques wrote:
I think I learned more about flying by teaching people to fly than I
could ever have learned in any other venue in aviation.

This is most of the reason I'm pursuing the rating: I think it'll make me a
better pilot.

What you're seeing is the same thing they learned in medicine a long time
ago. The standard method for learning something new there is "see one, do
one, teach one". The last step drives the lesson home.

This last step is what in my talks with flight instructors I call the
"verification step".

The best way to determine that a pilot understands something you have
taught them is to have them teach it back to you in their own words
reflecting their own level of comprehension and retention.

This is the right approach to learning, and you are absolutely correct.
Teaching others to fly will without question make you a better pilot.



--
Dudley Henriques