FOI: Tasks A-C
Human Behavior and Effective Communication
The study of human behavior is an attempt to explain how and why humans function the way they do. A complex topic, human behavior is a product both of innate human nature and of individual experience and environment. Definitions of human behavior abound, depending on the field of study. In the scientific world, human behavior is seen as the product of factors that cause people to act in predictable ways.
Human Needs
There are five levels of human needs; each level must be satisfied to move onto the next:
- Physical
- Safety
- Social
- Ego
- Self-Fulfillment
Defense Mechanisms
There are a total of eight defense mechanisms:
- Compensation
- Projection
- Rationalization
- Denial of Reality
- Reaction formation
- Flight
- Aggression
- Resignation
The Flight Instructor as a Practical Psychologist
Anxiety:
A certain amount of anxiety can be a good thing. It may drive a student to perform better or enhance focus. Too much anxiety or abnormal reactions due to anxiety detriment student performance. As an example of dealing with anxiety, you might state that a student with a heightened fear of stalls can easily overcome that fear by introducing stalls in a series of “baby steps,” i.e.
- Demonstrate a stall and recover at the very first burble, ask them “How was that?”
- Demonstrate again and recover a little after the first burble… and so on.
If you encounter a student whom you feel may not be psychologically fit to fly, immediately request an evaluation flight, an opinion from your FSDO, or consult their AME. Use your best judgment and try to determine if there are extenuating circumstances in your student’s case. Try to figure out why they are behaving the way they are!
Effective Communication
There are three elements in human communication:
- Source
- Symbols
- Receiver
Barriers to Effective Communication
- Lack of Common Experience
- Confusion Between the Symbol and the Symbolized Object
- Overuse of Abstractions
- Interference
The Learning Process
Learning Theory
Learning is a change in behavior as a result of experience.
There are three different “types” of learning, as not everyone learns the same: • Behaviorism
o “Behaviorism stresses the importance of having a particular form of behavior reinforced by someone, other than the student, to shape or control what is learned. In aviation training, the instructor provides the reinforcement. Frequent, positive reinforcement and rewards accelerate learning. This theory provides the instructor with ways to manipulate students with stimuli, induce the desired behavior or response, and reinforce the behavior with appropriate rewards. In general, the behaviorist theory emphasizes positive reinforcement rather than no reinforcement or punishment.”
o I.E. a student learns by an instructor REWARDING good behavior and “PUNISHING” bad behavior. Punishment is usually in the form of identifying an error and not giving false praise.
• Cognitive Theory
o Unlike behaviorism, the cognitive theory focuses on what is going on inside the
student’s mind. Learning is not just a change in behavior; it is a change in the way a
student thinks, understands, or feels.
o i.e. Trying to understand what is going through the student’s mind when you’re
teaching them. If you can figure out their point of view or thinking process, you can
adapt your teaching style to them easier. • Combined
o A combination of the above two, using the best of both. It is more difficult to do this. Characteristics of Learning
Learning is:
• Purposeful
o To learn, one must have a goal or set of goals and a reason they have sought instruction. A student may study harder for their written exam if their goal is to attain an aviation career than if they were only taking a written because they needed to satisfy a college credit requirement.
• Result of experience
o Since learning is a change in behavior due to experience, learning must involve
experience. You cannot learn for your student. A good example is that even if you explain how to land perfectly in the classroom, a student who has never landed before will not be able to land until they are able to experience it themselves.
• Multifaceted
o Learning is not limited to one idea. The process of learning one thing will, at the
same thing, learn other things. • Active process
o Like all students know, you cannot simply learn something by physically being in a classroom. A student must be ready to learn and willing to accept the ideas being communicated to them.
Principles of Learning
There are six principles of learning; a good acronym is REEPIR (say like “reaper”):
Readiness
A student must be ready and willing to learn before he/she can attempt to learn. There must be a purpose, an objective, and a motivation to learn.
Exercise
Something most often repeated is best remembered.
Emotion
Learning is strengthened when a positive emotional reaction occurs when exposed to something. Learning is weakened when a negative reaction occurs.
Primacy
The first time something is learned leaves a strong impression. For instance, if you teach a student an improper recovery technique the first time you demonstrate a stall, it will be harder to teach them the right way than if you had taught them correctly the first time.
Intensity
Students learn better if the situations they experience are genuine and not simulated. Can you remember how much more focus you had on your instruments the first time you went into actual IMC instead of simulated?
Recency
Something learned recently is easier to remember than something learned a long time ago.
Levels of Learning
There are four levels of learning, in order least to most:
- Rote – Ability to repeat facts learned
- Understanding – to comprehend the nature of something
- Application – Putting learned information to use (note: Most instructors stop here, unfortunately)
- Correlation – Ability to take several previous learning experiences and transfer it to somethingnever previously encountered (i.e. Successfully troubleshooting engine roughness in an airplane without a checklist for such an occurrence)Domains of Learning
There are three domains of learning. They explain the levels of activity in learning a mental or physical skill. They are:
• Cognitive
o Refers to the levels of learning in a classroom setting
o i.e. Learning different lessons in ground school to pass the written test
• Affective
o Least understood
o Describes methods of feelings towards a learning objective, such as a “safe attitude”
• Psychomotor
o Deals with learning physical skills
o i.e. Learning the different skills using a GPS and flying the airplane to learn to shoot a
GPS approach Learning Physical Skills
Learning a new physical skill involves more than just “programming muscle memory.” It includes the following nine principles:
- Physical Skills Involve More Than Muscles
- Desire to Learn
- Patterns to Follow
- Perform the Skill
- Knowledge of Results
- Progress Follows a Pattern
- Duration and Organization of a Lesson
- Evaluation vs. Critique
- Application of Skill
Memory
There are three types of memory:
Sensory register
o Basically, your brain’s “filter” – it quickly organizes perceptions into things that areimportant, and things not needed to be remembered
o 7 ± 2 Rule: Humans remember series in numbers of 7, plus or minus two depending
on the person and information. We also can deal with 7 plus or minus two sensory inputs. This is important in aviation, because students sometimes find it hard to accept new information while flying an airplane.
Short-term memory
o Also called working memory
o When something is being committed to short-term memory and is interrupted, it will only be remembered for 20 seconds
o It takes about 5-10 seconds to “code” or remember something, such as a phone number or acronym
Long-term memory
o Where information is stored for future use
o Information may become distorted with time or disuse
There are three Theories of Forgetting:
- Disuse
- Interference
- RepressionThere are five ways to aid Retention of Learning:
- Praise Stimulates Learning
- Recall is Promoted by Association
- Favorable Attitudes Aid Retention
- Learning with All our Senses is most Effective
- Meaningful Repetition Aids RecallTransfer of LearningLearning is best accomplished following a pattern of known to unknown, simple to complex, and past to present. This is because all learning is based on things previously known. Good instruction plans for and seeks out positive transfer of learning. Students may benefit from incidental learning along the way. This is why most instruction follows the building block concept, combining smaller concepts to apply them to larger applications.
The Teaching Process
The teaching of new material can be broken down into four different stages. They are:
Preparation
A lesson plan must be prepared for each lesson an instructor wishes to teach. Objectives for a lesson must be clearly stated and are usually drawn from the Practical Test Standards. A lesson plan should also include material that should be studied beforehand by the student. Additionally, the elements of a performance-based objective are:
- Description of the Skill or Behavior
- Conditions
- Criteria
Presentation
There are three primary methods of presenting a lesson plan available to an instructor. Material can be presented in lecture format, through the use of the demonstration-performance method, or with guided discussion (suited to larger groups).
Application
Application is where the student demonstrates what the instructor has presented.
Review and Evaluation
Every lesson should include a good review and evaluation of the student’s performance. This is done to make the student aware of their progress, guides them to what problem areas they are having, and presents suggestions as to what the student should do to prepare for the next lesson.
Teaching Methods
Organizing Material
The introduction of any lesson should have three elements:
- Attention
- Motivation
- Overview
The lesson should then proceed to Development, and then Conclusion.
Development
Development refers to presenting the subject manner in a way the student understands. There are 4 components of development:
- Past to Present
- Simple to Complex
- Known to Unknown
- Most Frequently Used to Least Frequently Used
Cooperative/Group Learning Method
Group learning refers to grouping students in groups of 3 to 6 students to maximize the learning of a specific objective. It is important to remember that group learning must be highly organized and well planned, with a specific purpose statement. Students should be grouped in heterogeneous groups, meaning that students are put into diverse group based on academic ability and differing ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Students should not be allowed to form their own groups based on friendships; the instructor should choose groups to make a mix of students. Additionally, each student should contribute equally to the task, and a clear objective must be made to the group. Students can then interact and learn from each other most effectively. Groups should work towards a specific reward, made known to them by the instructor.
Guided Discussion Method
Usage of questions in the guided discussion method can achieve the maximum understanding of a lesson if used skillfully. There are several different types of useful questions:
-
- Overhead
- Rhetorical
- Direct (towards one student)
- ReverseCharacteristics of an Effective Question
- Has a specific purpose
- Is clear in meaning
- Contains a single idea
- Stimulates thought
- Requires definite answers
- Relates to previous material
Demonstration-Performance Method
Typically, all humans are effective “learn by doing” learners. The demonstration-performance method is used a great deal to this effect, especially when learning skills in the cockpit. There are 5 steps to the demonstration-performance method:
- Explanation
- Demonstration
- Student Performance (simultaneous)
- Instructor Supervision (simultaneous)
- Evaluation
Computer-Based Training Advantages of CBT:
- Less labor-intensive
- Progresses at pace of student
- Bases lesson on responses of student