CFI lesson plans, make your own or buy pre-made?

R

rodzilla

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Feb 16, 2014
Messages
22
Display Name
Display name:
rodzilla
I'm starting my CFI training soon :mad2:. Is it better to spend close to 4 months making your own lesson plans, or buy pre-made lesson plans (backseatpilot) and modify them to your liking?

Also if I do buy pre-made lesson plans, how long does it normally take to modify them? weeks? months? :confused:

To me it doesnt matter, but I also dont want my time wasted or taking the wrong route. What seems to be the normal thing to do, and how to do it?



Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
From my own grad school level teaching, I would say that whether I've been handed curriculum or developed it on my own the time commitment to truely understand what you're teaching is the same. The ordering is different through.

This of it as 2 progressions, with pre-made curriculum you get a bunch of talking points and objectives which you then research to the point where you can coherently deliver the material and credibly answer questions about it. This research obviously includes being able to reason through WHY the material you present is correct .

When you have to make the curriculum you start out with a blank slate, but an objective. In turn you do research to understand the subject being taught and break that material down into lessons.

In both cases its understanding the material that's the long pole, but also the mark of a superior instructor.
 
I felt that I learned the materials better making my own, but it doesn't take months.. Once you get the format done a couple days will do it. There are plenty of samples to download for content and formatting Adidas.
 
You're learning how to teach. If you buy them, you will never have the appreciation for the process that developing them yourself from scratch will bring, and that appreciation is important to becoming a good teacher.
 
As someone who just went through the process, I echo what Ron said. Make your own, and practice your delivery as you go along (that is the hard part anyway). The written lesson plan should be the end result of learning how to teach the topic, not a goal by itself, IMHO.
 
After doing it myself, and seeing several go through it.. I would suggest the following. Everyone has a different approach, and something else may work better for you.

Don't sit down and try to write them all at once, you will and up revising them and spending lot of time redoing stuff.

Create a Private and commercial syllabus, outlining the lesson plans in an order that you believe makes sense, make sure it allows for pre-solo and pre checkride required tasks.

Create a lesson template that you like and make sure it includes everything from the instructors handbook. Elements, equipment required, etc..

Create 2-3 of the first lessons you expect to teach for the private syllabus, take just those 2-3 and teach them to your cfi, go over the format with him. Go over your Syllabus' with him as well. Do not just show up and expect to teach something, you should be studying the material very well before attempting to teach him, otherwise you will just waste time and money.

Finalize the template and moving forward study and create 2-4 lessons, and teach them to your instructor on the ground. Bunch the flying ones together and do some flight lesson's on maneuvers that make sense together.

Before you know it, you will have a LOT of experience teaching the ground portion, the lesson plans will be completed by the time you are ready, and you will likely be in decent enough shape on the flying as well. You will have taught each and every private and commercial lesson plan, mainly on the ground but in the air as well.

Helpful hint, most of the commercial lesson's are similar to the private one's only the tolerances are different. (Landings, etc)
 
A friend sent me their lesson plans. I rewrote all of them based largely on the ones provided to me with minor changes as I felt appropriate. That part got me started and didn't take long.

From there I taught each one and video recorded myself. I learned a few more things from that, adjusted the plans, and that was that. I had no issues with that part of my CFI ride.
 
jesse said:
A friend sent me their lesson plans. I rewrote all of them based largely on the ones provided to me with minor changes as I felt appropriate. That part got me started and didn't take long.

From there I taught each one and video recorded myself. I learned a few more things from that, adjusted the plans, and that was that. I had no issues with that part of my CFI ride.
Click to expand...

I will add to this, I obtained about 2-3 copies of other peoples. That helped me with the content and deciding upon a template that I liked.

The video recording is a good idea. I thought the CFI Oral was complete, but not what I would consider hard. It pays to be prepared.
 
I mostly made my own as a way of studying. Initially it ended up being an outline of the PHAK, which reared its flaws when it came time to present the information, so I redid it so that its structure flowed better. I used other CFIs' binders as inspiration for what and how to include stuff. I also used Derek Beck's lesson plans (http://flight.derekbeck.com/index.php) for more inspiration, and some of the lesson plans are flat out his, tweaked as necessary to reference the PA-28R-201 instead of the C-172RG. I made by binder in Google Docs, so it has the added benefit of being backed up on the cloud and can be edited anywhere. The obligatory cover is a poster I had printed at a photo center trimmed to make the front and spine. Having about 80% of its contents made by me makes the two-inch behemoth more personal to me as it symbolizes how I spent last summer.
 
I will add also that, after my CFI Initial, I felt completely comfortable and prepared to do what my new certificate allowed me to do....

That is a good question to ask anytime you get a new cert... Do I feel prepared to exercise these privileges?
 
A friend of mine (a freight pilot who had been flying 135 for ~5 years or so) gave me a syllabus from when he was in college and how he did his private. I modified though and used them as guideline for how I wanted mine. I changed them substantially, but it was nice to have somewhat of a template on what I wanted to do. I made about 15 when I called and booked with the inspector and he said "Oh I only want 2... you can sotp making those" so I did. Ride went great, and he was pretty impressed.



Now I'm doing my II plans and struggling a lot more than on the CFI plans. There is SO MUCH MORE information on those.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone.

What I've decided is to make them myself. I have ordered the BSP lesson plans as an outline in case I get lost or cant find the information. I'm doing the 39 or so plans based on each CFI pts task. I go to a part 141 school that has their own syllabus, but I have to make my own anyways.


Whoever said it can be done in days is delusional :hairraise:.It takes about 2-3 full days per each lesson plan.

I plan to complete the whole Pvt&comm plans by the end of april if possible. Cant wait to do the 20-30 pages on the aero plan :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top