Blog 3

The first thing I would go over with my new private student is Westminster's procedures such as timeliness, professionalism, etc. I would make sure they know about these items as well as the consequences for not complying with them. (I would do this in the least scary way as possible.)

I would tell them right off that they are now in college and studying is very important in order to make progress. Information is no longer given to you, and you have to do your readings and everything else in order to be prepared for each lesson as well as to just make general satisfactory progress.

After all the general expectations, I would ask the student about themselves and what they would like to get out of the program. I would ask them what they expect of me as an instructor and just help them feel as comfortable as possible.

Blog 2

Before I even talk with the new student, I would check out his or her binder to see what the most recent lessons completed were. I would check for mistakes made and see if there are any lessons that need to be completed or that were missed altogether. I would also get a general idea of the kinds of hours they need and see if they need a lot more hood time, cross country time, etc.

I would ask the previous instructor about the student's strong points and weak points. I would also ask about the student's personality to see what I have to do to accommodate that particular personality.

When I first meet with the student, I would ask them what they feel their strongest and weakest points are in both ground and flying. I would then conduct a general ground session with them to see if the previous instructor's answers and the student's answers match up. I would also get my own understanding of the student's ground knowledge through this session.

Blog 1

I could help the student get over that learning plateau by changing my method of teaching landings. I have to consider that it may be my fault that the student is struggling. If after my different approaches don't work, I would have a talk with my student asking what they think the reason for their struggling is. I could see if they are having different issues outside of flying that could be affecting their performance.

If after all this, they are still struggling, I would suggest that the student take a small break (a couple weeks or so) from flying to freshen up and see if they can do better once they return. I would make it known to the supervisor at this point but not ask them to be involved yet.

Once they return, if my student is still really struggling with landings, I would suggest that they talk with my supervisor about their progress. I may give them one more chance after this before I have that "talk" with them. I may also suggest that they switch instructors to see if that helps with their performance.