Telling Is Not Teaching

Book excerpt: Certified flight instructors are rarely educators. Many see instruction as a stepping-stone to the next level of their flight careers and assume that merely telling is the equivalent of teaching. This mistake is detrimental to both students and the aviation industry. Telling a student something has no bearing on actual learning. True teaching requires a much deeper level of communication. Veteran flight instructor and educator Mike Thompson applies principles of educational psychology to the FAA-H-8083-9A Aviation Instructor's Handbook. Using simple, down-to-earth language, Thompson examines how to enable genuine teaching by developing the student-instructor relationship. Teaching is a human endeavor requiring an investment from student and instructor alike. Initially, it takes time to build a relationship with students, but once it's established, rates of engagement and retention increase. True learning is then achieved. Despite advances in educational technology, the human brain continues to learn as it always has. Thompson applies his knowledge of how people really learn and how to build effective student-teacher relationships to provide flight instructors with skills they can use to encourage deep and advanced learning. While primarily aimed at the aviation industry, Thompson's no-nonsense discussion of teaching and educational psychology is applicable in any instructional arena.