Today's lesson was just a ground brief, so it went pretty quickly. I prepared briefs for four areas: Weight & Balance, Performance & Limitations, Airport Markings & Avoiding Runway Incursions, and National Airspace Systems.
My instructor went into his student role while I walked him through an example weight & balance calculation and a calculation of minimum runway length. While going through, he was very lethargic and didn't seem interested in what I was saying. He answered my questions correctly, but as briefly as possible. I wasn't sure what to do about it, so I just plowed through the material. After wrapping up, he asked what I thought about the student's attitude. I told him and we began a discussion on how to get the student involved in the brief. One thing I could have done was tell the student to stand up and write the numbers on the whiteboard, then have him do all the actual math and see if his numbers agree with mine. Same is true with the performance calculations.
For the next hour, we discussed everything there is to know about airport signage and lightage and airspaces. I had most everything in my notes, but we found a few ways to reorganize them to make things more clear. We also talked about ways to have the student explain airspace requirements using real-world examples. For example, if we were flying to Okeechobee at 1,000', what would the cloud clearance requirements be? How about if we diverted to River Ranch? Could we fly through that Military Operations Area? Who would we contact to find out if there's currently training taking place? And on and on.
Real-world examples are great for proving that the student understands the subject, but they also gets the student to think about the relationship of the knowledge to the symbology on the chart. And that's what learning is all about.
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