How much time did you put into your lesson plans?

ready2fly

ready2fly

Well-Known Member
To date, I've put a considerable number of hours into my lesson plans. I've gleaned (gleened?) a little bit here, a little bit there and so on. I've spent hours typing the things out and making them look presentable.

However, several of the CFI's at my FBO have simply made a photocopy of somebody elses and walked in for the checkride and had no problem.

Personally, I've found the time and effort I've put into preparing my lesson plans has helped me see the big picture... but, that's just me.

I've been told more than once by more than one instructor "Eh. You quit looking at the lesson plans after about three weeks anyway..."

Is this true? Your thoughts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not slamming those who have not necessarily put forth the time and effort that I have.... Just curious - is this the norm?

R2F
 
Personally, I didn't put a whole lot of time into my lesson plans. I did, however, do more than go to a copy machine. I borrowed a few different people's lesson plans, looked them over, and if their method for teaching a subject looked good for me, I used it. I did type it up on my own and changed things to make it more suitable for me, but I never saw a whole lot of reason to not use someone elses lesson plans if in fact those lesson plans were good. I did write a few lesson plans from scratch to prove I could do it, but I knew I could... I started using ideas from others a lot more.

You also mentioned how CFI's really don't use the lesson plan for more than a few weeks... that's what most of the CFI's I talked with said. I have yet to have a CFI that used a lesson plan when teaching me!
 
I still use some of my lesson plans.

Like others I photocopied a bunch of them and had no problem on my checkride. I wrote a couple of my own, but they were definitely =not= in official FAA format. Instead they were outlines of areas I need to cover and included direct references to regulations or other material when appropriate and graphics that I want to reproduce as part of the discussion. I still update them when I learn of some new technique.
 
no need for each and every CFI to reinvent the wheel. Although the time i put into making my own lesson plans i used studying the material so it wasn't a waste of time by any means.
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

[ QUOTE ]
Personally, I didn't put a whole lot of time into my lesson plans. I did, however, do more than go to a copy machine. I borrowed a few different people's lesson plans, looked them over, and if their method for teaching a subject looked good for me, I used it. I did type it up on my own and changed things to make it more suitable for me, but I never saw a whole lot of reason to not use someone elses lesson plans if in fact those lesson plans were good. I did write a few lesson plans from scratch to prove I could do it, but I knew I could... I started using ideas from others a lot more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. If I like the way something is presented, I'll use that in my lesson plan. I did, however, feel unprepared on my CFI ride by using someone else's style of lesson planning. Since then, I've changed around the format to make myself more prepared.
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

Thanks all for the insight. You've basically answered my questions.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not on a soapbox here saying that I did all my plans from scratch. I didn't. The main part of my lesson plans I re-typed pretty much verbatim from one that I borrowed.

But I have added a substantial amount of information and wondered - at this point - am I spinning my wheels?

Thanks again.

R2F
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

R2,

You'll soon realize that writing up your own lesson plans is like re-inventing the wheel. There's tons of good plans out there, and only so many ways to present the info on a certain topic. The chances of you or I coming up with something totally unique is nil. Best to take a good number of lesson plans on a subject, get the info from them that you like, and tailor/organize that to you own desires of a lesson plan for that topic. That's probably where you'll spend most of your time....tailoring the ideas from other plans to your desired style.

Truthfully, where you make your money is in how you brief your mission. A good organizational method to use is to brief the "motherhood", the coming and going if you will. Here's what we're going to do from preflight to start to taxi to takeoff to getting to the area (or airport, etc); then go right to leaving the area (returning home) and brief the arrival, approach, landing, etc. Next cover contingencies and emergencies and how they'll be handled going and coming, and the how's etc of these. After the coming and going is completly briefed, then get into the "meat" of the flight....ie, what you're going to do in the practice area, at the outlying field, etc, and how you're going to do it. This is where the teaching comes in. All in all assuming a 1 hour brief, motherhood should last about 15 minutes, and the meat the other 45 minutes (average...tailor as necessary). Point is don't get too hung up on motherhood details to the detriment of the meat. A good brief really sets the tone for the flight and is very professional, as well as getting the point across that want to. If you're interested, I've got a couple of good briefing format outlines that you can have and tailor to your liking. Like everything else, no need to reinvent the wheel.
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

Cool.

But HEY - they look REEEEAL nice! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

I printed the vast majority of my lesson plans from online.
I wrote about a dozen of them myself for certain topics which I could not find a pre-made lesson plan for.

I really don't use the lesson plans that much....I may browse over them if I'm about to teach something I never have before or if it has been a few months since I last taught that topic.

I caught a little bit of flack on my MEI checkride for not knowing my lesson plans as well as I should....I didn't really have a "drag demo" lesson plan and got called out on that.

I had no problems on my initial CFI or CFII due to having pre-made lesson plans.
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

With all this said who wants to send me their lesson plans or where can i find some good ones online?
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

I'm always working on things. But you are free to grab stuff from mine if they work for ya:

http://www.igot.net/fly/cfi/files/ppl/

That is after a couple of rewrites, and seems to be working well as written now. Up through solo. Working on cleaning up the post-solo stuff now as well. Not a plan so much as outline/note/reminder type of thing for me. There are some other early versions where I tried to take someone else's stuff and modify it for me, but it didn't work too well. In the files directory there somewhere. Never used an FAA style lesson plan, but you may want to base an outline on the ideas when you write them up.

Also, there are other good sites out there, like:

http://www.geocities.com/seanwoodard/cfi.html
http://www.scottsasha.com/aviation/plans/cfiplans.html

And there is always that thing called google.
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

[ QUOTE ]
With all this said who wants to send me their lesson plans or where can I find some good ones online?

[/ QUOTE ]You can also find some lesson plans under "Curriculum Development" off the "Subject Areas" menu at www.thecfi.com
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

Hey- thanks to everyone who contributed! I really appreciate the input!
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

If anybody wants any commercial lesson plans, including landings and takeoff's, etc. (maneuvers specifically), PM me your email addy, and I'll email you some. Most of mine are down to a page long, and they look very professional in my opinion. I like mine a lot better than the one's I found online... but that could be just me!
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

Hey Josh,
Looks like you put in alot of time...they look really good...I might just have to use some of your ideas if you dont mind.
FOD
 
Re: How much time did you put into your lesson pla

No prob if ya want FOD. Spent maybe 5-10 minutes to get each one set up. Takes longest to find the page references. If I had time, I'd tweak the layout a bit, but it works as it is. The sheets make it easy for me to keep track of where different students are. Try to stick to the way it is now, but at times, a cross out, or an extra thing gets written in.

I'm redoing the post-solo stuff, short, soft, other airports, VOR nav, x-country, etc. right now. Should have that up soon. Then Going to redo my pre-test review stuff.

And somewhere in there, make up a BFR sheet, and maybe rewrite the aircraft checkout one around then.
 
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