There's a good chance this person completed training without ever learning the big picture. The pilot learned - and performs - every procedure by rote and gives little thought to understanding the reasons for learning maneuvers, other than to pass a checkride. The pilot is certificated, but does a poor job of flying.
The big picture is just what it sounds like. It's understanding the entire situation, not just bits and pieces. Usually, a rote procedure is an activity or task that's part of a larger process, and often it's the means to an end. Being able to accomplish a rote procedure may be the first step in learning a skill, but understanding why it's required and how it fits into aviation is just as important as being able to do it. Teaching the big picture is more important than just teaching the procedure because it teaches students when and how to use it in all situations, not just a few contrived training situations.
Take stalls for example. The big picture is a sequence of events and activities or tasks that when mastered demonstrate that a student can both recognize and recover from stalls in any situation, understand why stalls can be dangerous, and when they are safe to perform. The bits and pieces (or rote procedures) include isolated explanations of configuration, power settings, relative pitch angles before and after a stall, and recovery procedures. A big-picture learning session includes all the parts and how they relate to each other, as well as the stall and recovery.
For most stall recoveries in light airplanes the basic rote procedure is to attain a desired airspeed, configure the aircraft as required, establish a power setting, pull the nose up, and wait for the stall. After the stall, you push the nose down, add power, pull the nose up, and then reconfigure the airplane. Many students perform stalls this way without thinking about what's happening.
Using the big picture concept, stall training starts on the ground with an explanation of what a stall is, why it occurs, how it occurs, how to recognize a stall, how to make one happen, how to recover from one, what stalls may lead to, such as a spin, and why students must demonstrate stall proficiency during the checkride.
After this lengthy explanation your student should repeat the information to you in his (or her) own words while you (the instructor) listen to the thoughts behind the words, and not just the words. Listen for the explanation's connotations as well as the denotation of each word. Listen for erroneous concepts. If you're not sure your student understands the stall concept completely, ask him to explain the relationship between pitch angle of the nose to the horizon and angle of attack. This is one way to determine whether a student understands the difference between a stalled airfoil and a nose-high (or low) pitch attitude. When you're satisfied that your student understands what's going on, go practice stalls.
Students should be able to maintain aircraft control while they adjust airspeeds and configurations. They need to know not only the control inputs for the maneuvers, but how much control input is required. Just learning "reduce power, raise the nose, lower the flaps" is not enough. They need to learn how much power reduction is necessary, and how far they should raise the nose relative to the exact situation. This is especially evident when you perform the same maneuver on different days with different air densities. Rote procedural training doesn't teach these kinds of adjustments, but the big picture concept does.
If a student is to learn "how much" control input he should apply, you must tell him what to look for, both outside and inside the cockpit. You must show him how to adjust controls to obtain the desired results while looking outside - not inside. Stalls are a VFR (not IFR) maneuver, and that means students must look outside while flying VFR maneuvers.
During stall practice, you should ask students to identify how far the wing is from a stall as the airspeed changes. Teach them to observe and feel control response at different airspeeds, from high speed flight through the stall. They should observe the airspeeds at which the warning horn starts honking, and the indicated airspeed when the wing finally stalls, both in level flight, at various bank angles, and at different back pressures while in a turn.
Finally, students need to learn just how far to drop the nose to break the stall, and how high they should raise the nose during a stall recovery. If they understand the purpose, function, and operation of the stall warning horn, they won't be afraid to raise the nose during a stall recovery while the horn is still sounding because they'll know they aren't at the imminent stall, just a few knots above the stall.
The big picture concept applies to every maneuver and to every concept a pilot must learn. Quoting regulations and recommended procedures from memory may be impressive, but how well do your students apply these things while they're flying? For example, the Aeronautical Information Manual recommends that you turn crosswind at 300 feet below the traffic pattern altitude if you're flying closed traffic at an airport. If you teach your students to turn crosswind at a specific altitude without explaining the 300-foot recommendation, your student won't know when to turn to crosswind at a different airport. If you teach students to fly a downwind over a specific ground reference at your home airport, they won't know where to fly a downwind at a new airport.
Teach the big picture. Complete knowledge makes transfer easier and more accurate. It's almost impossible to teach students everything they may encounter after they earn their certificate, but if you've taught them the entire concept of a procedure (the big picture), they will have a better chance of making the correct decision when they encounter new situations.
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