Flight Instructor Ground School - Week 1

I've successfully survived my first week of ground school at FlightSafety. Wow, I'm tired and mentally drained. A typical day includes three 2-hour sessions; either two in the morning and one in the afternoon, or one in the morning and two in the afternoon. Here's what we covered this week:

Monday
08:00 - 10:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              Learning Process
10:00 - 12:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              Effective Communications,
              Human Behavior
13:00 - 15:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              The Teaching Process,
              Teaching Methods

Tuesday
08:00 - 10:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              Techniques of Flight Instruction
              Critiques and Evaluation
10:00 - 12:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              Planning Instructional Activity
              and use of Instructional Aids
13:00 - 15:00 Fundamentals of Instruction:
              Flight Instructor Responsibilities

Wednesday
08:00 - 10:00 Fundamentals of Instruction Quiz
13:00 - 15:00 Aerodynamics I
15:00 - 17:00 Aerodynamics II

Thursday
08:00 - 10:00 Aerodynamics III
10:00 - 12:00 Aerodynamics IV
13:00 - 15:00 Systems I
15:00 - 17:00 Fundamentals of Instruction FAA Exam

Friday
08:00 - 10:00 Systems II
10:00 - 12:00 Weather Theory
13:00 - 15:00 Performance, Weights & Balances

There are five of us in class. The other four have been at FSI for a while; three of them from Private Pilot onward. They all have their multi-engine and commercial multi-engine ratings. Then there's me. I have the most time as pilot, most hours, but least ratings. I feel a little out of place, but I don't think the others object to me being there.

On Wednesday, we got to talking about the two simulators on site: a Saab turboprop and an ERJ 145 commuter airline. During one of our breaks, we all went upstairs to see if we could get a look inside the ERJ sim. No problem, but it won't fly right now because it has some tests running on it. We got to climb in and sit in the pilot seats and see the generated scenery with all the instrumentation lit and and functioning. After a while, our instructor found us and joined us. He changed the airport scenery to different airports and weather conditions. It was very cool.

We had the same instructor for all classes, except for Weather Theory. For weather, we had the FSI comedian join us. This instructor had me in tears several times during the two hour class. And the best part was that he knew his stuff really well and gave us tips on how to use the various charts.

After class today, I had to jump back into studying and preparing for my commercial check ride that is scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning. More on that later.