ABSTRACT

Effective teaching strategies are of utmost importance in achieving expected learning goals. Interesting and well-presented lessons challenge and motivate students, thereby increasing learning outcomes. There are many teaching techniques and strategies available to teachers. However, the selection of the appropriate teaching strategy will be vital to producing effective teaching episodes. It has been suggested that different teaching strategies are appropriate for each of the three domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor and affective. The vocational nature of the aviation environment means that quite often the competencies required by aviation trainees will call for training in highly specialised skills (the psychomotor domain). According to Pithers (1998), "demonstration is usually the means of teaching a skill. This allows for initial observational learning of the skilled processes and operations in sequence" (p. 177). Accordingly, the key focus of this chapter will be on teaching for skill acquisition and on the demonstration approach, since much of the teaching and learning that takes place in the aviation context will depend on this particular approach. In the first part of the chapter, the concept of skill acquisition will be examined as will the theorisation of the stages of this process. The second part of this chapter will expand on the three basic stages of skill acquisition and will examine the demonstration approach as well as provide some practical guidelines for skill acquisition within the aviation context.