Goodbye to the Lecture: Embracing Interactive Learning Techniques

This article addresses many factors on the frontier of improved effectiveness in teaching and learning. Although there are no specific references to any aviation-related courses of study, this field could benefit substantially from an interactive approach. Flight training has always been almost entirely pure memorization. Flight students are constantly going over system after system and procedure after procedure. This type of learning has yielded an extremely poor retention rate. The realm of flight-training is now in an era that stresses subjects like cockpit resource management, pilot adaptability, and teamwork. Therefore, it seems odd that those responsible for flight training have not employed more interaction in their teaching on a consistent and widespread basis. Considering the amount of information that pilots need to manage, not only individually, but collectively with the members of their crews, a different approach should be examined. An approach that emphasizes better interpersonal skills, improved knowledge retention, and more acute conclusion-drawing abilities, should at least be analyzed by flight training experts