Making CFI lesson plans

bigdog2003

Filing Flight Plan
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Dec 10, 2015
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Kyle
First off any info and suggestions are much appreciated. I am starting to make lesson plans for my cfi training and am not sure the best place to start or route to go. Should I make all my own or purchase something? I am still in commercial training but the chief instructor at my school wants me to go ahead and get a head start for my CFI training.
 
Both ways work. If you write your own then the studying is pretty much handled doing the writing and it only costs your time. If you buy them you still have to study and it costs your time and money.

I wrote my own. The FAA has example lesson plans and guidance to help get started. The sources of information would be far/aim pilots flying handbook and just about anything else credible you can read
 
I wrote like 3 then realized I could buy them and they said the same thing just with better formatting. paying 50 bucks for a pre built one was worth it too me. Just buy them and spend extra time in the technical subject areas studying.

I've never opened my cfi binder after i got the CFI except to look up 61-65 stuff lol.
 
I wrote 3x5 cards. Much more portable than piles of paper or a book. Easy to add, remove, and edit, too.
 
I wrote 3x5 cards. Much more portable than piles of paper or a book. Easy to add, remove, and edit, too.

I always despised making flash cards in school. Mostly writing by hand is slow and my hand writing is not good. Although I guess you could type some up on Microsoft Word or something.
 
The process of making it is worth more than the final product, even if you never look at it afterwards. The same goes for aircraft checklists. I asks my students to make their own checklists.
 
I never understood the whole "CFI binder" thing...I think I wrote 5 or 6 lesson plans to satisfy my instructor that I could do it, and wrote one for my checkride.
 
I never understood the whole "CFI binder" thing...I think I wrote 5 or 6 lesson plans to satisfy my instructor that I could do it, and wrote one for my checkride.

The only reason I can see writing a lesson for everything is to refresh your memory on the topics and maneuvers you will be teaching. I've done a lot of CFI training and am surprised at how much review needs to be done with some prospective CFIs, because they either don't remember what they did in their previous training or they never really learned it in the first place.

I wrote my own lesson plans. Since then, I can't think of too many students I've worked with that have done their own. These days almost everyone is getting a set of lesson plans from one of the online sources or from a friend who went through flight instructor training before them.
 
I really think I am going to do my own. Where do you start? Should I get the CFI PTS and just start going through it and making lessons? What about the FAA Flight Instructor book? What about an FOI book?
 
Honestly when I do mine I think I will likely buy a quality set of lesson plans. At that point I can decide to use those or write my own while using those as a reference.
 
I really think I am going to do my own. Where do you start? Should I get the CFI PTS and just start going through it and making lessons? What about the FAA Flight Instructor book? What about an FOI book?

For the lesson plans themselves, CFI PTS, Private/Commercial ACS, Airplane Flying Handbook.

The Aviation Instructor's Handbook has examples of lesson plans, but they aren't that useful.

Mine went something like Objective, Equipment, Duration, Content, Common Errors, Completion Standards.

"Content" and "Common Errors" can be copy-pasted from the CFI PTS, completion standards copy-pasted from the Private/Commercial PTS/ACS, objective paraphrased from the AFH. Read the description of each maneuver in the AFH and fill in any missing pieces or vague areas that are not in the ACS/PTS.
 
Honestly when I do mine I think I will likely buy a quality set of lesson plans. At that point I can decide to use those or write my own while using those as a reference.

If I were to do it over again I would buy a set, then customize each one to suit my teaching style.

I wrote my own since that was what was done back in them olden days. Then I took the PTS (as it was called back then) and made notes on the pages.
 
This is one case where it's not the result that matters, it's the process. Developing the lesson plans, and thereby developing the ability to structure your thinking is the whole point.

I'll paste something I posted in a similar thread about a year ago:

Build your own lesson plans. That way you will not only understand the material far better, but will be better equipped when a client asks you if you can train them on some non-standard item that you don't already have a lesson plan for. You will know how to construct one for maximum effectiveness and therefore know exactly what needs to be modified or expanded when it isn't working right. It's by far the best way to learn to be an effective CFI.
 
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