Training Delivery Methods (Part 2) FI.I.C.K5

Why This Matters

You can't lecture someone into a good landing. Skills come from doing, and the two methods here are how you get a student from watching to performing.

Last week covered the methods that build understanding. These build capability, and then we'll put all six together and talk about how to choose.

Demonstration-Performance (K5e)

Built on the principle that people learn by doing. Best for mastering mental or physical skills that require practice, which covers most of what you teach in an airplane.

Note that phases three and four are one moment, not two. The student performs while you supervise.

Drill & Practice (K5f)

Straight from Thorndike's Law of Exercise: connections are strengthened with practice.

• The mind rarely retains and applies a new concept after one exposure

• Nobody masters crosswind landings in one flight

• Learners master skills by practicing and applying what they've been told and shown

• Every time practice occurs, learning continues

Your Job: Provide the practice opportunities and keep them pointed at an objective. Practice without direction is just repetition.

Selecting a Method

Your success as an instructor depends "to a large degree," per the AIH, on the ability to organize material and select a method appropriate to the lesson.

​What the handbook tells us:

• Effective instructors normally combine methods in a typical lesson. You're rarely picking just one

• Demonstration-performance is for skills requiring practice

• Lecture suits large groups and background knowledge, but can't teach motor skills well

• Guided discussion requires learners who already have knowledge to draw on

• Know the whole toolbox. Like a technician, you'll use some tools far more than other, but sometimes the less-used tool is exactly the one the situation calls for

Choosing the Right Method

What This Looks Like

Teaching crosswind landings, first exposure.

​Explanation:

Lecture and/or guided discussion in the classroom. You walk through the crab-to-slip transition, the control inputs, and what a good touchdown looks and feels like. You tie it to what they already know - they've flown the pattern dozens of times; this is what changes when the wind isn't down the runway. Questions get answered here.

​Demonstration:

You fly one, narrating only what matters. Nothing extraneous. They follow along on the controls.

​Learner Performance + Supervision:

They fly the next one immediately after your demo, with you coaching. Then again, and again, stepping back where you safely can, so you see what's theirs and what's yours.

​Evaluation:

You judge whatever competence they've attained today, maybe "holds the crab unaided, needs help in the flare." In the debrief, you deliver it: how they performed relative to what you taught, and what that tells you about your own instruction.

​Drill and Practice:

Nobody masters crosswind landings in one flight. The next lessons shift to drill and practice (repetition aimed at what the evaluations surface). As their skill grows, more of the performance becomes theirs alone, and the evaluations track it.