Caravella and his fellow inspectors felt they gave fair checkrides, but they were concerned about the low pass rate at DuPage and across the nation. Giving it a lot of thought, he realized "that most applicants had the ability and knowledge to be instructors, but they lacked developed teaching and evaluation skills."
From this realization came the CFI Pretest Workshop. Caravella reasoned that an applicant would profit from a session that would reveal his strengths and weaknesses. He could practice teaching, communicating, and evaluating, and get coaching from FAA inspectors, experienced flight instructors, and other education professionals in a not-for-score environment. He could watch another applicant's presentation, listen to the inspector's evaluation, and apply this information to himself. Finally, because it would be an FAA program, it wouldn't cost the applicant a dime.
Caravella and DuPage's other inspectors have held the workshop four or five times a year for the past several years. To date, 175 CFI applicants have attended the workshop, and have then taken their CFI practical tests at a half-dozen or so FSDOs around the nation. The DuPage inspectors have tracked each applicant to record the success rate of the workshop.
From the workshop participants Caravella has compiled a list of nine major problem areas common to most CFI applicants:
- Failure to "identify" the student. The CFI presents a lesson that's either too simple or too complex for the student's level of experience.
- Over-reliance on lectures. Giving a lecture limits a CFI's ability to evaluate the effectiveness of his teaching - and what the student is learning.
- Avoiding unknown answers. When a student asks a question the CFI can't answer, rather than saying, "I don't know, but I'll find out," the CFI attempts to direct the question toward a topic he knows a lot about.
- Not paying attention to the student. The CFI is intent on what he's going to say next, instead of listening to the student's answer. This stops evaluation in its tracks.
- Quitting before achieving correlation, the highest level of learning. The instructor moves to a new block of learning before the student understands the current block of learning and can correlate it to other topics.
- Losing control of the lesson. The student takes control of the lesson by interrupting or asking inappropriate or unimportant questions, and the CFI doesn't keep the lesson on track.
- Incomplete checkride recommendation and preparation. The instructor hasn't committed to memory and created a checklist of all the endorsements, forms, signatures, documents, and logbooks a student needs to take a checkride.
- Not staying ahead of the student. The CFI doesn't adapt his teaching to a student who learns faster than normal because of intellect or special training. This is similar to the failure to "identify" the student, but it requires a different approach.
- Incomplete evaluation. The CFI takes the student's word that he has no questions about a topic. This answer can reflect lack of experience, embarrassment, or the desire to have the lesson end.
Because the CFI checkride depends on role playing, this is how the CFI Pretest Workshop addresses the nine common problems. The inspectors and CFI applicants play different roles, and the roles change, but all applicants play "the instructor" sometime during the workshop. On average, nine to 12 applicants attend each workshop. They are divided into three groups, each with its own "expediter," an inspector or experienced instructor who keeps the group on track.
The workshop leader gives each group a common flight training scene to play, and the groups have about 15 minutes to prepare it for presentation. Each applicant in a group teaches part of the scenario to the inspector, just as he would during the oral portion of a CFI checkride. No one teaches a complete lesson, but the inspector always plays the student.
The inspectors try to push the teaching situation toward one of the nine common faults. They push just enough to make the point without demolishing the teacher's well being. After each performance, the workshop leader comments on what went right or wrong, and how the applicant can improve his presentation. Then the other inspectors/instructors offer their constructive suggestions. Next, the applicant practices the new methods for a while.
Because each applicant starts teaching where the previous one left off, a certain amount of tension tends to build naturally, but the workshop leader ensures it doesn't cross the line to embarrassment or humiliation. Applicants who volunteer to teach first get credit for bravery because the applicants who follow can learn from their predecessors and polish their presentations.
At a recent workshop, one group introduced and taught weight and balance. The first teacher began with the classic seesaw example and launched into a formal lecture. Caravella kept interrupting the teacher with questions. When the teacher realized he really didn't know what the student was - or was not - learning from him, Caravella stopped the lesson and started his evaluation.
If a teacher lectures a student, Caravella said, the teacher doesn't know if his efforts have been successful. Caravella offered some ways to evaluate the student's learning, such as asking leading questions to test knowledge. Several of the other inspectors added their own evaluation techniques until they knew the applicants had learned a new technique. None of the teachers who followed the brave leader made the same mistake. By the workshop's end, the last applicant to teach evaluated his student's input as much as his own presentation.
To evaluate student learning, a teacher asked Caravella to make several computations during her presentation. When she didn't notice that some of his answers were wrong, Caravella stopped the lesson and started the evaluation. He cautioned the applicant about concentrating so intently on the presentation that she didn't listen to the student.
And so the workshop goes. It's like the oral portion of an initial CFI practical test except for one thing. Caravella deliberately attempts to push the applicants into a problem area so the applicants will experience a few of them and see all nine by the workshop's end. This is something an FAA inspector often doesn't do during a real checkride. But the workshop's goal is to teach an applicant how to avoid these pitfalls rather than test his skills.
The scenarios change from workshop to workshop. For example, the CFI applicants may have to prepare a preflight briefing for a flight that will introduce a student to a new skill. The briefing should be complete so the student will have few, if any, questions about what he'll do during the lesson. The CFI evaluates the student's knowledge during the briefing and changes his level of explanation to meet the student's needs.
Preparing a student for his checkride is one scenario used in all workshops. The participants bring aircraft and pilot logbooks to the workshop and demonstrate to the inspector that the aircraft and student are ready for a practical test. They pay special attention to required student flight times, logbook endorsements proving the student meets all training and knowledge requirements, aircraft inspections, and compliance with airworthiness directives.
Because each CFI applicant will have to prove his qualifications and aircraft airworthiness, Caravella rarely skips this scenario. Perhaps the workshop's greatest benefit is that a CFI applicant recognizes his personal weaknesses, but he also realizes that he isn't weak in all nine. This fact alone boosts an applicant's confidence before taking that intimidating CFI checkride.
FSDOs across the nation are beginning to hold their own CFI Pretest Workshops, and Caravella is helping set them up so they'll be consistent. Caravella feels the workshop is a vital part of an instructor's training and would like to see flight schools, or a group of local flight schools, conduct a workshop for their CFI applicants.
The key ingredient to any such workshop, however, is for an FAA inspector to participate. The inspector is the person closest to the CFI practical test, and his insight to the checkride can help alleviate pre-checkride stress.
To set up a workshop, contact the safety program manager at your local FSDO. If your FSDO doesn't hold the workshop, or you want to set up a workshop at a flight school, you can download the curriculum from the Web, at www.cyberair.com.
Caravella says he didn't create the CFI Pretest Workshop just to ensure that the majority of applicants pass their initial tests. "What we want to see," he stresses, "is the appointment of a new flight instructor who is better from the very beginning than even he thought he could be. Passing the test the first time is just a result of improving the quality of the individual CFI."
Murray Shain is a retired FAA aviation inspector who frequently participates in the DuPage CFI Pretest Workshop.
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