Training:Teaching Fundamentals

Document Purpose

This document is meant to give an overview on suggested teaching and learning methods for mentors and students. Please do not use this document as a bible, the best way to learn how to teach is to do it yourself. As long as you are open to feedback along the way and force your students to also learn by doing, you will be a successful member of our training staff.

Effective Teaching

How to Transfer Knowledge and Skill

The ZNY training staff consists of highly trained individuals. They hold vast amounts of knowledge acquired through their own training and their own experiences. Having a well-founded basis of knowledge is critical to being an effective teacher. However, if that highly trained and knowledgeable teacher is unable to convey that knowledge to a student, then he or she is ineffective, regardless of knowledge and expertise.

Teaching is an art. It requires not just an understanding of the subject, but also an understanding of how people think and learn; it requires a certain amount of psychological understanding. It is important to understand that VATSIM instruction is fundamentally a "people skill." The ZNY training staff should present themselves in a professional manner. Nothing will destroy a student's dream of becoming a ZNY controller quicker than an unprofessional instructor or mentor. Training staff should be friendly, not bossy, should treat their students as equals not as subordinates, be able to recognize the signs of boredom and frustration and know how to deal with them. Training staff members should be able to quickly recognize when they themselves become frustrated with students who may not be progressing as they think they should and know how to deal with it.

Aside from being a teacher, training staff members must also be coaches. A coach, beyond anything else, is a motivator. Training staff can demonstrate their coaching skills by supporting their students in all aspects of their training. Instructors and mentors must do everything possible to keep their students striving to attain their goals. As a coach, teachers set the rhythm, identify areas of improvement, develop a plan, and then observe and guide the student as they practice. In coaching their students, a teacher does not allow bad habits to form, and is quick to reward their students for good performance and recognize the hazards and risks associated with poor performance.

Basic Elements of the Communication Process

Improvement in communication depends, in large measure, on an understanding of the communicative process. Communication takes place when one person transmits ideas or feelings to another person or to a group of people. Its effectiveness is measured by the similarity between the idea transmitted and the idea received. Since learning is defined as a change of behavior in the student, we can conclude that the teacher has effectively communicated when the information transmitted changes the behavior of the student.

The process of communication is composed of three elements:

1. the source (a sender, speaker, writer, teacher, transmitter, encoder)
2. the symbols (words, signs, music used in composing and transmitting the message)
3. the receiver (a listener, reader, student or decoder)

Communication is a complicated two-way process. If a listener has difficulty in understanding the symbols a speaker is using and indicates confusion, the speaker may become puzzled and uncertain, losing selective control of ideas. On the other hand, when a listener reacts favorably, a speaker is encouraged and force is added to communication. The relationship between the communicative elements is not only dynamic but also reciprocal.

Communication is achieved through the use of simple oral and visual codes. Ideas are communicated only when symbols are combined in meaningful wholes, ideas, sentences, paragraphs, speeches, or chapters. Each part of the whole then becomes important for effective communication. However, the most successful communicator uses a variety of channels through which to communicate selected ideas.

Effective communicators always remember a basic rule of thumb: communication succeeds only in relation to the reaction of the receivers.

Barriers to Effective Communication

The nature of language and the way it is used often leads to misunderstanding. These misunderstandings stem primarily from three barriers to effective communication: the lack of a common core of experience, confusion between the symbol and the thing symbolized, and the overuse of abstractions.

Lack of Common Core of Experience: Probably the single greatest barrier to effective communication is the lack of a common experience level between teacher and student.

Confusion between the Symbol and the Thing Symbolized: Effective speakers and writers carefully differentiate between symbols and the thing they represent, keeping both in true perspective.

Overuse of Abstractions: Abstract words stand for ideas that cannot be directly experienced and for things that do not call forth mental images in the minds of the receivers. These will not evoke in the listener's or reader's mind the specific items of experience the communicator intends.

Teaching by Example

Teachers must continuously evaluate the example they set for the student. Is a proper level of professionalism always maintained? Does the example instructor and mentors set on VATSIM or in TeamSpeak reflect the same standards we hold our students to? Nothing can nullify good teaching more quickly than the teacher who does not follow the procedures he or she sets forth.

Transfer of Learning

Transfer of learning is broadly defined as the ability to apply knowledge or procedures learned in one context to new contexts. As a result, learning occurs more rapidly and the learner develops a deeper understanding of the task as he or she brings some knowledge or skill from previous learning. This is called a positive transfer of learning. However, some things can hinder new learning, referred to as a negative transfer.

A degree of transfer is involved in all learning. This is true because learning is based on experience and people interpret new things based on what they already know or have experienced. Many aspects of teaching profit by this type of transfer, perhaps explaining why students of apparently equal ability have differing success in certain areas.

This highlights a need to know a student's past experience and what has already been learned. In lesson and syllabus development, teachers can plan for transfer by organizing course materials and individual lesson materials in a meaningful sequence: each phase should help the student learn what is to follow.

For the teacher, the significance of transfer lies in the fact that the students can be helped to achieve it. Here follow some suggestions from educational psychologists:

• Plan for transfer as a primary objective; the chance for success is increased if the teacher deliberately plans to achieve it.
• Ensure that the students understand that what is learned can be applied to other situations. Prepare them to seek other applications.
• Provide meaningful learning experiences that build student confidence in their ability to transfer learning. This suggests activities that challenge them to exercise their imagination and ingenuity in applying their knowledge and skills.
• Use instructional material that helps form valid concepts and generalizations. Use materials that make relationships clear.
• Avoid unnecessary rote learning since it does not foster transfer.

Habit Formation

The formation of correct habit patterns from the beginning of any learning process is essential to further learning and for correct performance after the completion of training. As primacy is one of the most fundamental principles of learning, it is the teacher's responsibility to insist on correct techniques and procedures from the outset of training to promote proper habit patterns.

Due to the high level of knowledge and skill required in air traffic control, training has traditionally followed a building-block concept: new learning and habit patterns are based on a solid foundation of experience and/or old learning. Everything from intricate cognitive processes to simple motor skills depends on what the student already knows and how that knowledge can be applied. As knowledge and skill increase, there is an expanding base upon which to build for the future.

Control of Human Behavior

The relationship between the teacher and the student has a profound impact on how much the student learns. To students, the teacher is a symbol of authority.

The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play and rest. The average human being does not inherently dislike work. A human being will exercise self-direction to the reward associated with their achievements, the most significant of which is probably the satisfaction of ego. The average human learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept, but also to seek responsibility. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of common problems is widely distributed in the population.

Under the conditions of modern life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially used. The teacher's ingenuity must be used in discovering how to realize the potential of the student. This responsibility rests squarely on the teacher's shoulders.

Hierarchy of Human Needs

The need for satisfaction is an ongoing behavior that determines everyday actions.

Physical Needs: These are at the broadest level. Individuals are first concerned with their need for food, rest, exercise, and protection from the elements.

Safety Needs: These are protection against danger, threat and deprivation, and are labeled by some authors as the security needs.

Social Needs: If individuals are physically comfortable and have no fear for their safety, their social needs then become the prime influence on their behavior.

Egoistic Needs: Those that relate to one's self-esteem--needs for self-confidence, for independence, for achievement, for competence, for knowledge; and those needs that relate to one's reputation--need for recognition, for appreciation, for the deserved respect of one's fellows.

Self-Fulfillment Needs: At the apex of the hierarchy of human needs are those for self-fulfillment, or for realizing one's own potential, for continued development, and for being creative in the broadest sense of that term. This need of a student should offer the greatest challenge to the teacher.

The Teaching and Learning Process

Definition of Learning

Learning is defined as a change in behavior as a result of experience. The behavior can be physical and overt or it can be intellectual or attitudinal. Learning is also defined as a process by which experience will effect a relatively permanent change in behavior. This behavior change resulting from experience will directly influence future behavior.

Characteristics of Learning

Whether defined as a series of changes or as a fluid process, learning is a complex procedure that occurs continuously throughout a person's life. To understand how a person learns, it is necessary to understand what happens to the individual during the process.

Learning is purposeful: Each student is an individual whose past experience affects readiness to learn. Most people have fairly definite ideas about what they want to do and achieve; their goals are short or long-term.

Each student likewise has a specific intention and goal. Students learn more from an activity that tends to further their goals. Their individual needs and attitudes may determine what they learn as much as what the teacher is trying to get them to learn. Therefore, teachers need to find ways to relate new learning to the student's goals. In this learning process the student's goals are paramount; thus student responses to learning will differ because each will act in accordance with what he or she sees in a particular learning situation.

Learning is a result of experience: Since learning is an individual process, the student can only learn from personal experiences. Thus, learning and knowledge cannot exist apart from a person. A person's knowledge is the result of experience and no two people have identical experiences. This experience conditions a person to respond to some things and ignore others.

All learning is done through experience, but it can take place in different forms and in varying degrees of richness and depth. If an experience requires the involvement of feelings, thoughts, memories and physical activity, it is a more effective experience than one in which all the student has to do is commit something to memory.

Learning is multifaceted: The potential for learning goes beyond the training of memory and muscle, students can learn much more than expected if they fully exercise their minds and feelings. These feelings and experiences can easily influence a learning situation despite their not being included in a teacher's lesson plan.

Learning can have as many aspects as there are means for its expression. Learning can be verbal, conceptual, perceptual, motor, problem-solving, and emotional. Each student will approach a task with preconceived ideas and feelings, and these may change as a result of experience. The learning process may include verbal elements, conceptual elements, perceptual elements, problem-solving elements, and emotional elements all taking place at once.

While learning the subject at hand, students may be learning other things as well. They may be developing attitudes about air traffic control, self-reliance, etc. This type of learning is referred to as incidental and may have a great impact on the total development of the student.

Learning is an active process: Consider the law of readiness: students must have a desire to learn for one end or another; they do not simply absorb knowledge, and the teacher cannot assume that students have learned because they were present in a training session. For students to learn, they need to react and respond, perhaps outwardly, perhaps only inwardly, emotionally or intellectually.

Effective Questions

Areas of knowledge can be evaluated through oral questioning.

Good questions are:

• Easily understood - Questions should be stated in simple, straightforward language. They should be as brief as possible, yet complete enough to eliminate the possibility of misunderstanding.
• Composed of common words - Questions should be designed to measure understanding of the subject, not knowledge of English. Trick questions are to be avoided!
• Thought provoking - Questions should challenge the student to apply knowledge rather than repeat facts. They should not be answerable with "yes" or "no," or so easy that the answer is obvious.
• Centered on the major points of the objective - Questions should be built around the fundamental material and asked at the appropriate time to emphasize key points.

Consider the following when preparing questions:

1. Questions must be:
   1. Valid
   2. Specific
   3. Comprehensive
   4. Usable
   5. Reliable
2. Assess all levels of learning:
   1. Rote - who, what, where, when
   2. Understanding - why, how
   3. Application - describe how, explain why
   4. Correlation - combine knowledge elements in scenario

Criticize Constructively: To tell students that they have made errors and not provide explanations does not help them. If a student has made an earnest effort but is told that the work is not satisfactory without explanation, frustration occurs.

Be Consistent: Students want to please their teachers. The teacher's philosophy and actions must therefore be consistent.

Admit Errors: If the teacher tries to cover up or bluff, the students will be quick to sense it. If in doubt about some point, the teacher should admit it to the students. Good human relations promote more effective learning.

Levels of Learning

Levels of learning may be classified in any number of ways. The lowest level is the ability to repeat something that one has been taught without understanding or being able to apply what has been learned. This is referred to as rote learning. Progressively higher levels of learning are: understanding what has been taught, application of what has been learned, and correlation of what has been learned with other things previously learned or subsequently encountered.

For example, an instructor or mentor may conduct a training session to explain Kennedy departure airspace to a student.

A student who can verbally repeat the correct altitude blocks has learned the airspace by rote. However, does the student understand the reason why each block of airspace is formed the way it is?

Once the student can relay the reason departure controllers are only able to climb to certain altitudes is because of approach flows patterns, then the student has developed a level of understanding. This understanding is the basis of effective learning, but may not necessarily enable the student to vector correctly on the first attempt.

When the student understands the procedure for vectoring departure traffic, has had vectoring demonstrated to them, and has practiced vectoring until consistency has been achieved, then the student has developed the ability to apply what has been learned to future tasks. This is a major level of learning and part of the building block concept of instruction.

The correlation level of learning, which should be the objective of air traffic instruction, is that level at which the student becomes able to associate an element which has been learned with other segments or blocks of learning. The other segments may be items or skills previously learned, or new learning tasks to be undertaken in the future. The student who has achieved this level of learning at Kennedy, for example, has developed the ability to correlate the elements of departure control to other facilities.

The Teacher's Role in Human Relations

Keep Students Motivated: Students gain more from wanting to learn than from being forced to learn.

Keep Students Informed: Students feel insecure when they do not know what is expected of them or what is going to happen to them. Instructors and mentors can minimize such feelings of insecurity by telling students what is expected of them and what they can expect.

Approach Students as Individuals: When teachers limit their thinking to the whole group without considering the individuals who make up that group, their effort is directed at an average personality which really fits no one. Each group has its own personality which stems from the characteristics and interactions of its members. However, each individual within the group has a personality which is unique and which should be constantly considered.

Give Credit When Due: However, praise given too freely becomes meaningless; when deserved, it pays dividends in student effort and achievement.

Instructor & Mentor Professionalism

Training Oversight and Student Supervision

The instructor or mentor is the only person in a position to make the determination that a student is ready to move on to the next level in the ZNY training program. Before allowing students to move on, training staff members must ensure the student has demonstrated, through over-the-shoulder observations or video playback, the consistent ability to perform all of the fundamental tasks for the position already certified for.

Training staff members should also monitor and evaluate the student's decision-making ability, not only during training but especially those decisions made while controlling online. This again is accomplished through over-the-shoulder observations and video playback. The students should be debriefed on how their online sessions went and positive feedback should be given when necessary. Did the student make good decisions? Any indication of faulty judgment needs to be dealt with by the instructor or mentor before allowing the student to move on to the next level.

The Teacher's Role in Training

Although the training curriculum is designed to help students deal with a variety of circumstances which may result during controlling online, you as the training staff member are the key element of this program. Your attitude and your approach to air traffic control may often influence your students more than any specific lesson. By always setting a good example and by giving students support and encouragement throughout this program, you help them develop good judgment and sound controlling practices.

To help prepare yourself for this role, think about the difference between the teacher as evaluator and the teacher as coach. The evaluator sees his or her role as one of telling the student what to do, then monitoring the student's performance. Most of the time is spent making assessments, watching performance, answering questions, measuring performance and making positive or negative evaluation. The amount of learning actually accomplished is up to the student.

In contrast, the coach is someone who actively stimulates learning. The teacher not only makes assessments and observes the results, he or she also helps the student learn through demonstration and personalized instruction. The teacher-coach does more than just answer questions and point out errors, he or she also asks pertinent questions to stimulate the student's thought processes and encourages correct ways of doing things by helping the student analyze mistakes.

How do you instruct as a coach? First, be actively involved with your students as individuals. A student learns more when he/she realizes that the teacher respects him/her as an individual. Show the student that you know and care about him or her and can respond to day-to-day changes in the student. One day a student may be alert and ready to learn, another day the student may be unresponsive. Students may often find it difficult to tell you what is on their minds. Listen and respond constructively to help a student learn to be more open.