CFI Blog Post 3 Due 04/18

With a brand new student, my expectations talk should be a serious conversation because it is going to set the tone for the entire time that student trains with me. It is also the ideal time to instill good habits from the very beginning. After greeting's and some background, I would ask the student what his or her goals were in achieving the rating. Then begin discussing the expectations of a professional environment. I would start with what the student can expect of me. I will try my best to be consistent and fair with my teaching. I will come prepared for the lesson and if there is something I don't know. I will find the correct answer and get back to them. That good communication between us is essential for progress, so we should exchange schedules and dates of availability in advance. I am willing to work around schedules to meet on non regularly scheduled days. I will do my best to cover material clearly and concise. If he or she did not understand something, ask questions. Explain that the beginning stages of flying will set up good habits that he or she can use in flying for the rest of there life. From there lead into what I would expect out of them. Explain that the amount of progress is going to greatly depend on there motivation. They should be on time to the lesson and prepared by completing any homework assignments prior as well as what the lesson is going to consist of for the day. Explain that we will brief and post brief the lessons to determine strong areas, weak areas, and what to look into for the next lesson. State in advance that there is going to be days of bad weather and canceled flights, on those days we can still meet and cover relating topics on the ground. After the big items were covered, I would start getting more information on a personal level to determine personality type and build trust with the student.

CFI Blog Post 2 Due 04/06

After receiving a new student from another instructor, I am going to look into his/her folder to see where they are at in progress to the course. I will look and see if they are part 61 or 141 and what lesson the student is on. Next I will go through all of the logs for that students previous flights and read comments about each flight. This will help me to determine trends in the student’s progression. What he/she has been struggling with and excelled in? Which instructors left those comments and so forth? I would ask the previous instructors questions pertaining to the folder about unclear comments. I would ask the instructor how motivated they thought the student was. Is he/she on time for flights and prepared for the lesson? What have the instructor and student been focusing on recently? How often did that instructor and student study ground together? What are the student’s strong points and weak areas? To figure out where the student is at in ground knowledge, I would start by asking the student how they felt about a topic, what they felt comfortable with, and what they felt were weak areas. Asking the student questions or giving a quiz on the PTS for the specific rating to determine prior knowledge can be useful as well. Then we could start to assess the chapters/topics that the questions came from? I could also use the stage check topics and questions from the problem areas on stage checks to further estimate the student’s ground knowledge. Assigning homework for the next meeting can be used to judge students motivation.