Benefits of the Collaborative Critique in Flight Instruction

by Susan Parson and Paul Preidecker

Education methods are evolving, but most of us are still accustomed to the “Sage on the Stage” model: the teacher talks while the learner listens and, at least in theory, learns through absorbing the teacher’s vast wisdom. Because that’s what we experienced, that is often the way we operate when we find ourselves in the role of teacher. 

Flight instructor training tends to reinforce this model, because it emphasizes being able to teach, a skill most often judged by the instructor candidate’s ability to talk – a lot. We are exhorted to greet pilot trainees with a carefully prepared preflight briefing. During the flight, we take pride in our ability to spout appropriate “instructional knowledge” on the maneuvers du jour. We chatter while securing the airplane. Then comes the post flight debriefing. In many cases, the instructor whips out a sheet of notes and marches efficiently down the list of the day’s bobbles, mistakes, and gold stars. By the time the pilot in training is invited to speak, he or she is often so dazed and overwhelmed that quick escape is the primary goal. 

There’s a better way. Sage-on-the-Stage, meet Guide-on-the-Side.  

There’s a cliché that teachers learn most from their students, and certainly that’s how one of us (Susan) developed a technique later incorporated into the FAA Aviation Instructor’s Handbook (FAA- 8083-9A) as the “collaborative critique.” It all started with Helen (not her real name), a private pilot trainee who cringed through every debriefing, no matter how diplomatically delivered. Her fixation on avoiding “bad grades” and mistakes of any kind became a major impediment to her progress, because she didn’t want to do anything without direct instructions from the right seat. 

The turning point – not just for Helen, but also for Susan – came on Helen’s first dual cross-country flight to a towered airport. Overwhelmed and terrified of the scalding scolding she thought she deserved on the basis of her mistakes – all common errors for that stage of training – Helen was in tears by the time we shut down. For once, Susan had the good sense to stow her notes and simply ask Helen to describe the flight from her point of view – in effect, to grade herself. Helen’s self-confidence grew as she realized that her mistakes were actually pretty minor, and that her perceptions of how the flight had gone were accurate and valid. Susan’s confidence in Helen’s judgment increased significantly. She also realized that having Helen replay the flight and reflect on what had gone well (or not) was a much better way to assess higher order thinking skills than attempts at mind-reading.

Experimentation on future training flights, and with other trainees, led to ditching the Knowing Authority style of post flight debriefing in favor of a collaborative critique involving five steps: Replay, Reconstruct, Reflect, Redirect, and Review. Three of these steps (replay, reconstruct, and review) relate primarily to a specific maneuver or lesson, while the other two (reflect and redirect) are intended to promote higher order thinking skills. Here’s how it works.

Replay:  Learner talks, teacher listens 

I’m not proposing objective truth, but subjective reactions; a review should reflect the immediate experience. —Roger Ebert

Step one is to have the pilot trainee verbally replay a maneuver or a lesson while you simply listen. 

Part of the instructor’s role is to help trainees integrate their perceptions into meaningful insights. When we play Sage on the Stage, we are essentially asking the trainee to develop those insights based on ourperceptions rather than their own. Also, an instructor who does all the talking implicitly teaches the trainee that he or she doesn’t have to pay close attention. When the pilot trainee knows that the post flight discussion always starts with giving a complete replay of the flight, he or she is more engaged, and highly motivated to self-monitor throughout the lesson. An added benefit is that the replay requirement helps develop the habit of maintaining situational awareness. 

So, rather than starting the next post flight debriefing with a laundry list of areas for improvement, ask the pilot to replay the flight for you. Listen carefully for those areas where your perceptions don’t match those of the trainee. Explore why it looked different to him or her.  This approach will give the learner regular opportunities to validate his or her own perceptions, and it will give you, the instructor, critical insight into how the trainee’s judgment is developing.  

While we recommend starting with the pilot trainee’s verbal replay, there’s no reason you can’t subsequently use material from a camera or a flight tracking app as a tool for a more literal replay of the day’s activities. 

Reconstruct:  What didn’t work (and what DID work)

We’ve all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it’s more important to learn from successes. If you learn only from your mistakes, you are inclined to learn only errors—Norman Vincent Peale

Once the replay phase has identified issues for further discussion, ask the trainee to reconstruct by identifying the “would’a could’a should’a” elements of the flight – that is, the key things that he or she would have, could have, or should havedone differently. Most pilots we know are simply bursting with would’a, could’a, should’a reconstructions after every flight. Consequently, once you open the floodgate with a “what would you have done differently” question, you will have three challenges. 

The first is to help organize the trainee’s responses into meaningful insights – in short, to direct those sometimes meandering stream-of-consciousness would’a, could’a, should’a observations into an instructionally useful formation.  

The second – and it’s a big one – is to maintain the balance between helpful self-evaluation and destructive self-flagellation. Reference to the appropriate certification standards (see below for more on this topic) can help. Another technique is reminding the trainee that mistakes are not failures, but a normal and expected part of any learning or training process. 

The third is to be sure to celebrate success. Reconstructing what went right, and how it was accomplished, has multiple benefits. It helps the trainee understand and build on knowledge and skills that have been mastered, it provides positive reinforcement, and it mitigates self-flagellation tendencies. You may want to make it a point to always have the trainee conclude this phase of the critique with the “things I did well today” discussion.

Reflect:  Reflective learners are effective learners. 

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effec­tive action. — Peter Drucker

Insights come from investing perceptions and experiences with meaning. This process requires reflection, a process in which the trainee relates new concepts and ideas to existing knowledge. 

The pilot personality sometimes tends to regard reflection as one of those squishy, touchy-feely concepts more appropriate to the psychiatrist’s couch than to the pilot’s cockpit.  Not so. Reflection involves having the trainee explicitly identify thinking processes that you cannot see, and that he or she may not have consciously recognized. A key part of your goal in this stage of the collaborative critique is to have the trainee turn the covert into the overt: condense any vaporous clouds of confusion into visible moisture that you can mop up with a better explanation or more targeted training. For example, Susan once had a private pilot trainee who trembled at the slightest bit of turbulence. By having him reflect on why he was so spooked by aerial potholes, we were able to isolate the specific things that bothered him and address them head on.  

To encourage reflection, here are some questions you might ask:

• What was the most important thing you learned today? (Note:  Discussion of new skills will probably dominate in the early stages of training, but listen for, and encourage, reflection on decision-making and risk management once the trainee has attained proficiency in basic maneuvers.)

• What part of the lesson was easiest for you? What part was hardest? What made it easy (or hard)? 

• Did anything make you uncomfortable?  If so, what was it?  When in the lesson (or maneuver) did it occur? How and why did it make you uncomfortable?

• How would you assess your performance and your decisions?

Redirect:  How will you apply these insights to the next flight?

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge … observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation veri­fies the result of that combination. — Denis Diderot

The final step in the collaborative critique process is to help the trainee correlate lessons just learned with past experiences, and then consider how to apply those insights to future flights.  For example, on a dual cross-country flight one summer day, the trainee encountered unexpected weather that required a diversion to an alternate airport. Here are some of the questions you can use to encourage “redirect” thinking:

• How does this experience relate to conditions that you have experienced in previous lessons?  

• Now that you have had this experience, what might you do to avoid or mitigate a similar risk in a future flight?

• Which elements might be unique to this flight, and why?  

• Which aspects of this experience might apply to future flights, and how?

Review: How did performance align with the certification standards?

While not mentioned in the FAA Aviation Instructor’s Handbook, we stress that there is an important fifth step in the collaborative critique. A regular component of the post flight debriefing should be having the trainee review and self-assess his or her performance with reference to the appropriate Airman Certification Standards (ACS) or Practical Test Standards (PTS). Especially for maneuvers, reference to the ACS provides both instructors and trainees with an objective standard to measure and discuss progress.

Guide on the (Right) Side

Acquiring fluency in the collaborative critique is also useful to those instructors and trainees with an eye on flying for the airlines. Paul had extensive GA experience before moving to the part 121 air carrier world, which knows and practices a similar technique called the “facilitated debrief.” Pilots familiar with this approach may be better equipped to cope with the fast-paced airline training environment, because they have already gained proficiency in monitoring and evaluating their own performance.  

Change is never easy, and shifting gears from the familiar “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the (right) side” approach can admittedly be a challenge. It’s well worth the effort. Since life gives only the real-world test and rarely grades on a curve, collaborative critique is one of the most effective ways for both the instructor and the trainee to be confident that the trainee has truly mastered not only the physical stick-and-rudder skills, but also the self-awareness and judgment needed for safe operation in real world flying.  (NAFI Mentor – JanFeb2019)