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The Fundamentals of Instructing: how people learn, how to build a lesson, and how to tell what actually landed.

Written by Jacqualynn Watson, CFII · Aviation advisor, from her own flight instructor curriculum.

Fundamentals of instructing

• Human Behavior and Effective Communication Why a student who briefed the maneuver perfectly still cannot fly it: human behavior, Maslow, the eight defense mechanisms, and the four barriers to communication.
• The Learning Process How people actually learn to fly: perception and insight, how knowledge is acquired, the four levels of learning, the six laws, the three stages of skill, slips versus mistakes, memory and transfer — and what a flight instructor does with each.
• Course Development, Lesson Plans and Classroom Techniques The four-step teaching process, performance- and decision-based objectives, how to organize and deliver a lesson, and the seven characteristics of a lesson plan you can actually teach from.
• Student Evaluation, Assessment and Testing Traditional and authentic assessment, the collaborative critique, maneuver and risk-management grades, effective oral questioning, and the question types to avoid.
• Elements of Effective Teaching in a Professional Environment Aviation instructor responsibilities, professionalism, professional development, instructor records under 14 CFR 61.189 and flight instructor recent experience under 14 CFR 61.197 — the CFI ground lesson on teaching in a professional environment.
• Teaching Risk Management and Accident Prevention Risk management as a CFI teaches it: hazards and risk types, the six-step process, PAVE, IMSAFE and 5P, hazardous attitudes, and the risks that belong to instruction itself.