Teaching CFI Ground School

8 Answers

1. 
   

   
   

   Brian on Sep 14, 2011

   I’m not aware of any.
    
   That said, I can tell you how my college ran the ground program. The first few weeks were based around the FOI. Following that was approximately 10 weeks of student presentations and a final exam. In the first week presentation topics were chosen and a schedule was set.
    
   To do this a hat with all the topics on individual pieces of paper was passed around. Each student got 5, some 6, topics. The schedule only stated who would present, so the topic to present was up to the student so long as it was one they picked. We would have two, sometimes three, 10-15 minute presentations a day and subsequent discussion/critique in an 80 minute class.
    
   Presentation methods and techniques were left to the student to decide. Tools available to us were a white board and projector for use of powerpoint.
    
   Some topics included: Steep turns, stalls, constant speed propellers and other systems, regulations of particular importance due their likely confusion such as the three regulatory definitions of night, v-speeds, manifold pressure, basic and advanced wing lift dynamics, flaps/high lift device dynamics, and stability and control. As you might notice, some topics are specific while others leave room for interpretation. 
    
   Personally, I feel this a great way to learn. It allows students to see many presentation/teaching styles and many of the pitfalls. Then relate them to the FOI which was just studied.
    
   Furthermore, I think it would be a relatively painless syllabus to write. The hard part would be picking topics, determining the schedule for presentations, and making sure each person gets at least 3 or 4 items to present. Fewer and they don’t get much practice, more than 6 or 7 and may feel overburdening. 
    
   Good luck, this was my favorite class. I bet it would be a blast to teach too, so enjoy!

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2. 
   

   
   

   pilotsteve on Sep 15, 2011

   This is a relatively small CFI class and it will only be a 10 day, 4 hour per session ground school.  So far I’m planning to assign the Jeppesen GFD book and supplement it with the videos and syllabus to teach FOI for the first week.  The second week, students will be required to give 2 hour presentations on 1 subject each, followed by a final test.
   Anyone else with suggestions to supplement this course please feel free to contribute your CFI ground school experiences, thanks!
    
   Steve 

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3. 
   

   
   

   Brian on Sep 15, 2011

   What is a small class, do you know the number of students?
    
   How spaced out are these 4 hour classes?
    
   What kind of students are you working with? Age group? Career goals in aviation or for fun?
    
   “required to give 2 hour presentations on 1 subject each”
    
   Have you ever taken a class that required such a lengthy presentation? The most I’ve ever had to give was 30 minutes, 45 with a team of 3. Except grad level I’ve never heard of anything over an hour from any college course. This, of course, doesn’t mean they do not exist.
    
   Let’s consider for a moment the preparation time necessary to make a good presentation. It is typically in the ballpark of ten times the time requirement of the presentation. In this case, 20 hours. For argument sake, take a 15 minute presentations I’m sure you’ve given. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to spend 2.5 hours preparing for this. That’s 10 times the 15 minute requirement, 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours. 
    
   Anyways, a requirement such as this will very likely scare the living daylights out of your students. Especially those who are highly driven with strong fears of failure. For others it will just lead to a lot of unecessary babble to fill the time. Not even discussing the high likelyhood of a long, poorly designed, presentation that will bore and/or confuse other students.
    
   I wish you luck Steve, but personally, and no offense intended, I think a 2 hour presentation requirement is ludacris. Maybe for grad level education majors, not for people with a 4 hour FOI crash course. 

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4. 
   

   
   

   Micah on Sep 15, 2011

   I like Brian’s comments and I agree that the presentation length is too long. I’m trying to remember what we did and there seemed to be a “book class” (study the textbook and pass the written tests) and a “night class” taught by CFIs for prospectives that centered around teaching maneuvers (and practicing teaching for the greenhorns). A lot of this class centered around what was known to be required/desired by the FAA examiner for the initial CFI, so this may not be comprehensive.
    
   It seemed like some elements of the course were very straightforward: each prospective CFI had a copy of each PTS and was expected to read, interpret, and explain all parts of the PTS. The students would take turns teaching manevers before the class and I can’t imagine any scenario where spending more than 15 minutes was desired (if you can’t explain stall recovery to your student in less than 15 minutes, adding time won’t help). Prospectives would collaborate and help/critique each other and the CFI leaders would lead the show.
    
   Our school was 141, so we had a syllabus and materials for each manuever, but if your students don’t have this they’ll need to build up the material they’ll use. We spent a lot of time with the basic texts (FAA’s PHAK, AFH, IFH) and tried to use the right FAA phraseology when explaining the answers. Sometimes there would be specific discussion on elements that were distinct with the examiner (like discussing power and pitch on the approach… some examiners only accept one answer.) But I think using a simple package (I’ve not used the Jeppesen, but I presume it’s both basic and comprehensive) is a good route. 
    
   What you’re trying to do may be the most difficult task of all pilot training. The hard part (or easy part, depending on your specific students) may be getting them to switch gears from the student “I’m hear to learn” perspective to the CFI “I’m hear to help you learn.” I think when they get that–that there’s nothing more to learn but they’ve got to put into practice what they know–then they’ll be able to show they’re ready.

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5. 
   

   
   

   pilotsteve on Sep 16, 2011

   We are running an airline career course at this school and the 4 candidates in this class have been mentally preparing to become flight instructors from day one.  These students are full time and have no other jobs or commitments.  I disagree that 2 hours is excessive, my 141 CFI ground school required presentations of this length and it is not really a big deal when you are covering subject matter you are familiar with and enjoy.  15 minutes is too short (when is the last time your instructor did a 15 min ground brief on a new subject?).  We also take breaks throughout the class and use many visual aids (no one wants 2 hours of blabbing on about the four fundamentals of flight!)
   As these CFI candidates are vying for a position as an instructor at our school, we have very high expectations of their teaching methods.  Presentations also will be interactive with the class and *positive* critique of their teaching methods from peers is expected.
   I understand the concerns but CFI honestly scared the heck out of me and it made me a stronger person by pushing me far out of my comfort zone.  Also the ground school will be ungraded, so only the only fear these candidates will have is the critique of their fellow candidates.  Failure rates for CFI initial are higher than ever and as fellow flight instructors, we need to hold our new flight instructors to the absolute highest standards.
    
   Steve

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6. 
   

   
   

   Micah on Sep 16, 2011

   Steve, I’ll be very interested in how this turns out. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I think 2 hours in an unsual length of time. My concern is less that this is too long than this sounds like an arbitrary length that is disconnected from what these CFIs will be doing with their students post-practical. My wife has 10-years teaching experience at a local college. Her only classes of that length are workshop-based (writing) classes. I don’t remember taking any classes that long except for science labs, which were never more than 45 minutes of lecture or theory before 2 hours of lab. I think the instructor’s role is similar–I can’t imagine any maneuver where I will teach theory to a student pilot for more than 15 minutes. I may ask them some situational questions during the preflight that are related to our flight, but the rest of the teaching happens in the airplane, while the student is flying. Maybe with an advanced student I’ll teach for an extended session, or for a student pilot prepping for a checkride we’ll do 2 or 3-hour groundschool sessions, but 95% of my instruction is short sessions of theory mixed with lots of practical (in-airplane or watching other pilots fly).
    
   Best of luck and teach well, Micah

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7. 
   

   
   

   Brian on Sep 16, 2011

   “when is the last time your instructor did a 15 min ground brief on a new subject?”
    
   Before every flight. You don’t spend 2 hours talking to a student about stalls, slow flight, or ground reference maneuvers before you go fly them; right? I would recommend a great deal of research, particularly around attention span and memory retention, before you lock yourself into this.
    
   Consider this (crude as it may be):
    
   Day 1: FOI introduction.
   Day 2: FOI Coninued, completed, and reviewed.
   Day 3-8: 6 Presentations (36 total). Length 15 minutes with 15 minutes to discuss/critque. 3 hours of work in a 4 hour class. Enough time for breaks/setup/etc.
   Day 9: Final review before exam, finish any presentations that may have been pushed off.
   Day 10: Final exam.
    
   This would give each student 9 presentations of 15 minute length – or two hours and fifteen minutes of presenting total. It would break it up so as to better meet attention requirements (sources say 10-20 minutes before attention plummets). Finally, they would be practicing what they will spend the majority of their time doing as an instructor..presenting a task to cover during a flight.
    
   I don’t believe this lowers the bar, I believe it makes it realistic. Just my 02 of course. Good luck and let us know how it turns out 🙂

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8. 
   

   
   

   pilotsteve on Sep 19, 2011

   Thank you for everyone’s input.  The 2 hour briefings are going ahead as planned (the chief pilot approved it) so I will let you all know how it turns out.  I have never worked at a college based flight school but it sounds like <30min briefs are much more common.  At previous career based flight schools I’ve worked at (including this one) 2 hour briefs are fairly common since they do not always preclude a flight. (In fact I just finished a 1.5 hour brief about ILS components and approaches with an instrument student).  All students will have to do briefs on all subjects eventually with their assigned flight instructor, the ground school is a chance for them to dig ver,y very deep into 1 or 2 subjects to expand their knowledge as a CFI.
    
   The reason I advocate such detailed knowledge is CFI candidates are qualified to do more than just Private Licenses.  I’m not only interested in their style of teaching, but their ability to extract as much detail from their assigned subject.
    
   I’ll keep you all updated on how it goes!
    
   Steve

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