Lesson Plans

AeroT

AeroT

Well-Known Member
Well today I sat down and started working on my lesson plans. Except since I haven't started training for my CFI yet I'm not exactly sure where to start and how many I need etc...

What is the best way to formulate them?

Use the PTS and the Flying Handbook and reference them?

Do I need to make a lesson plan for every flight I plan on doing with my students or just a lesson plan for every maneuver that there is.

Basically I am asking: do I need to write out every lesson, like "introductory flight" and go over all the things I want to talk about?
 
We could reinvent the wheel here but there are many (better) visual examples online. There are numerous varieties for you to follow.

Don't spend more time than you have to...satisfactory is satisfactory. You think you might use them, but you won't. Your training syllabus will dictate the training for the day.
 
Trev0079 said:
Do I need to make a lesson plan for every flight I plan on doing with my students or just a lesson plan for every maneuver that there is.
Click to expand...

My binder was set up with lesson plans for each individual maneuver. I suppose you could combine all of the ground reference maneuvers into one lesson. I recommend putting a lot of effort into your ground briefing lesson plans such as airspace, FARs, and common cariage/holding out. These are the ones that I actually reference on a regular basis.
 
Lesson plans are useless IMHO. If someone is having that hard of a time with it teaching it, they don't know it well enough themselves, and need to look over the info before they waste a students time and money. I don't profess to know everything. So if I needed to, I would review what I needed to do the night before, or a few hours before the student came in to go over what was needed rather than go to some pre-packaged lesson plan that may not fit into what we were about to go and do that day.

Lesson plans (again, this is only my opinion) only work when you are going to be teaching a ground class for a written test. Otherwise, bring it up before the lesson, and inform the student what they will be doing *before* they get there, so they can study in on their own, and come to you with questions, rather then they regurgitate something to an examiner that has been rote memorized.

"So, tell me about turns around a point?"

"We will be flying to (insert airport) today, then to (insert airport)m which are two separate airspace's. What kind of airspace will we be in at these airports, and what kind of airspace is in between these airports."

"Tell me a little about our engine."

"You get to the airplane, and notice that (insert equipment discrepancy here), can we still fly today?"

See what I am getting at? I always thought about my job as an instructor was to fill in the gaps of a student's own knowledge, not to hold their hand to get them through their certificate. Those that wanted me to hold their hand, never finished, because they lacked the motivation they needed to actually do all the hard work it takes to finish.
 
Lesson plans govern how we learn, from early childhood, through various levels of adult education. More importantly, learning how to utilize a lesson plan can prove a formidable teaching tool. Young adults in school for education will create, and throw away, hundreds of lesson plans.

Lesson plan writing improves organization through practice preparation. This is no different than the private pilot completing multiple cross country plans. I think we'd all agree, preparation complete with notes and written guides will always be superior to memory.


OP: You probably want to start large scale first.

Maybe you are a visual person? Buy a pad of post-it notes and write down all the main headings through the PTS. Now organize them up on a wall and then go into writing lesson plans.

For me, I am much to indecisive for that process. I chose to just get started, writing down everything I could think of, with little worry of organization. In other words, brain storming, free writing, and then revision might be better for you.

Whatever process you choose, you'll want to cover what is in the PTS and anything else you feel pertinent. Wikipedia has a nice piece of information and the FOI is filled with lesson plan information. Try out the different formats or just google lesson plan formats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_plan

Good luck.
 
When I was training for my CFI, my lesson plans came straight from the CFI PTS as well as the PVT and COM PTS booklets. I didn't make a lesson for every flight, just every subject area in the PTS. I spent a good 2-3 months making a lesson for pretty much everything that the PTS covered. It took a long time, but because I went over everything, I felt very prepared to teach anything.

Unfortunately, after spending all that time on them, I never touched my lesson plans for either my CFI or CFII ride, and I've never taught off of them. I teach at a 141 school where my lessons are dictated by a structured course outline.

More than anything, the lesson plans I made served as a great study guide for me before those instructor checkrides. If you find yourself instructing out of a part 141 school then your TCO (course outline) will dictate what you cover for each lesson.
 
Don't re-invent the wheel as was mentioned above...

Here's a link to my bag-of-tricks from when I taught full time: (replace the dot's with '.')

http://www(dot)praser(dot)com/CFI/

Feel free to R&D... ripooff and duplicate. Everything from my big binder is there all scanned as PDF's - a whole lot of random stuff that I hope is helpful. (which I used on my CFI checkride ages ago)
 
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