Note Taking

Taking notes of a training session is an important part of the instructor’s work, especially when monitoring the student. Comprehensive, fact-based and objective documentation of the events of a training session form a structure for the debriefing, which in turn facilitates learning and student’s development.

A good set of notes describe the events during a training session in a factual and objective way. The point is not to assess or evaluate the trainee’s person, but to list the facts of their actions. The notes answer the question ’what happened’ during a training session. It is worthwhile to write down the events, discussions, conflicts etc. as comprehensively as possible, so you have something to refer back to on the things your student finds worth mentioning in the debriefing. During the training session you have no means to know which event the student thinks is the most valuable lesson, so having as much as possible written down helps you to remember and discuss situations the student wants to talk about. (Sounds tough, but with practise, you find a good balance on what is important and what can be left out.)

You can also build data-sheets in your notes, for example noting down each final separation when sequencing arrivals. This way you can show the student their actual performance in the debriefing in an objective way. It’s far more educating to say “your average final separation during this session was 3,2NM”, than “your final separations were good”. 

Note-taking also helps you to let your student concentrate on the work itself, while you are monitoring. If you address the things you see right when they happen, then you end up talking and student listening while the session is running.  While getting feedback is an important part of learning, we have to give student’s time to do some actual practice in peace as well. Let the student do their thing, note your observations, and talk about it during debrief.

Safety vs. Training

How do safety and training relate to each other?

If you go into a coffee shop, the barista might have a name plate that says ‘trainee’. Student drivers have markings on their car to let others know they are still practicing, and when a student pilot is on a training flight, they write ‘school flight’ in the flight plan’s remarks. Why do you think this is? Is there an underlying notion that training will somehow affect service quality and therefore others should know about it?

If that is the case, why don’t we in ATC let pilots know when we have training in progress?Have a look at this Skybrary article about Safety occurrences during OJT. From the article we see that On-the-Job Training indeed poses a measurable safety impact, in light of reported occurrences. Even though the article is a bit dated and the statistics are not clarified on a detailed level, we think it’s safe to conclude that ATC On-the-Job training really has an effect on operational safety. 

Let’s take a moment and think about this.

On-the-Job Training in Air Traffic Control adds an additional layer of complexity to an already complex system. Even though the instructor is responsible for the quality of service and safety, it’s actually someone else who is holding the controls. The additional complexity comes from the quality of communication, understanding and overall cooperation between the student and the instructor. The instructor’s ability to maintain a picture of the situation which aligns with the students situational awareness, plays an extremely important role in safe training operations.

Now, we could go on and on about this subject, but for the sake of keeping it simple we want to concentrate on the importance of prioritising safety over training. It means that safety always comes first. This might seem too obvious to mention, but we cannot stress it enough. Whenever there is a situation that you think isn’t safe, or you assess that the situation is evolving into a direction that you are not comfortable with, act immediately. In these cases training objectives and student centered pedagogical approaches fall down in priority. Make an intervention, take over the position or give clear instructions to the student on what to do and say, even if this wasn’t the preferable thing to do training-wise. Be vigilant and updated on what is happening in the position and in the air at all times, and update your Situational Awareness actively. This way you can balance your actions to ensure both safety and learning.

Practical Aspects of Holding a Debriefing

Debriefing is equally important as the actual work done in the simulator or in the position, if not even more important. That’s why it shouldn’t be neglected, but you should really invest in it. As the briefing, debriefing also needs to be prepared, structured, timed and held in an appropriate place where you can avoid distractions.

So be prepared and use a structured approach. Take time to hold a debriefing after every training session. Use the facilities available to build a peaceful environment for your discussions. Lead the way for the student and show an example. When you take the debriefing seriously, so will your student.

What to consider?

Time: Arrange a debriefing at the end of a training session. In initial training, this means right after a training session in the sim. Don’t wait until the next day, or have ‘combined’ debriefings only after completing a certain training phase. The student needs constant feedback on their progress and by making the debriefing after a training session a habit, they will get the most out of the sessions. A good advice is to have a quick break after a session, so that you have time to go through your notes and the student can prepare themself for the upcoming debriefing.

“Let’s have a quick break and we’ll meet in the debriefing room for feedback in 5 minutes.”

— The Good Instructor

In OJT, have a full debriefing at least at the end of each shift. It is also good to have quick, compact debriefings after each session in the position, when the events are still fresh in the memory. Just make sure that there is also enough time for the student to have decent breaks. This way the feedback will be timely and it will help to keep the debriefing duration at the end of the day reasonable.

Place: Arrange the debriefing in a private location, away from the working position. This way you are free of distractions and the conversation remains private. We want the discussions to remain trustful, which is not going to happen with an audience. If there isn’t a dedicated briefing/debriefing room at your training academy/unit, make arrangements to allow private debriefings.

Duration: The duration of the debriefing may vary, as long as all the required elements are covered. Normally, a debriefing should be considered to take some time in order for you to go through everything thoroughly. Still, sometimes a more streamlined approach may be necessary. For example, in between sessions in the position during OJT may be covered with a shorter debriefing with only a few main items. This shall be compensated for in the debriefing at the end of the day, though.

Practical Aspects of Conducting a Briefing

How to conduct the briefing may and will vary depending on the type of training. In simulator training phase a part of the briefing may act as a tool to introduce new subjects and the respective session objectives. This could be done simultaneously for a group of students at a time, when all the students will be working on the same exercise. Still, an individual one-on-one briefing covering the rest of the session’s details needs be completed prior to the actual simulator exercise. This is the part, where you and your student agree on the rules for that individual session.

In On-the-Job Training however, the training session needs to be adapted to the needs of the student every time. Even if there were a group of students in OJT at the same time, this type of training needs a more individual approach, and briefings should be held in private to adapt better to the individual student’s needs.

Here are three things to consider when planning a briefing session:

Time, duration and place of briefing are important aspects to consider.

Time: Arrange a briefing prior to every training session. It’s best to have it right before going into the position or simulator. If there is too long time between briefing and the actual training session, there is a chance that the plan you’ve discussed and agreed on becomes irrelevant as conditions may change. Also, student’s readiness for a training session cannot be evaluated into the future, so the student’s situation might (and will) shift as time goes by. That’s why it is important to have the briefing in close conjunction with the training session.

Place: Arrange the briefing in a private location, away from the working position. This way you are free of distractions and the conversation remains private. We want the discussions to remain trustful, which is not going to happen with an audience. If there isn’t a dedicated briefing/debriefing room at your training academy/unit, make arrangements to allow private briefings.

Duration: The duration of the briefing may vary, as long as all the required elements for said training session are covered. Normally a briefing should be considered to take some time in order for the two of you to go through everything thoroughly. 

Still, sometimes a more streamlined approach may be possible. For example during OJT, a shorter briefing with only a few main items in between sessions in the position may do the trick, as long as a thorough briefing has been carried out at some point along the line. Also, when working consecutive shifts together with the same student may open the possibility for short briefings, where only changed information is taken into consideration (ie. weather and whatever other changing conditions need to be addressed). In these situations it is important that you know the student and their progress well enough to be sure a short briefing will be appropriate. 

Take the time you need to complete the briefing but do not rush it. Sometimes you need more time and sometimes less. Just ensure you and the student are ready before the start of each training session!

How to work around reactions when giving feedback in ATC

How do we react to feedback?

That depends a lot on the personality of the feedback receiver. Some people are more inclined towards hearing comments regarding their performance and how to improve it than others. As an instructor, it is important to be aware of and understand the psychology behind reactions to feedback. You should know how to adjust your communication depending on the student’s reactions. The whole point of giving feedback is to give the student their keys to success, so there’s no point trying to force criticism in a way that doesn’t serve our cause.

We’ll be looking at some common reactions to feedback and how to handle them.

Fight or flight

Some people consider feedback automatically as a threat. This is a completely natural reaction; we’ve evolved to be social creatures, and our brains have been wired to unconsciously look for social threats, such as criticism. For cavemen, rejection by the pack was a matter of life and death, and that’s why modern humans still react to these cues as a matter of survival. Depending on the situation you might witness a student start to challenge (or fight) your feedback strongly, in an attempt to redirect the attention away from their actions. Others might close down emotionally, or even want to end the discussion completely and leave the situation, just as prey fleeing a predator.

If your student shows this kind of behaviour, it is important to react in a way that restates trust and puts the student back in a safe environment. Make sure the student understands that the feedback is not personal, and concentrate on their performance instead of the person. Be calm and assertive. A person in fight or flight mode needs calming, and they mirror your personal reactions when assessing the situation. So don’t push their limits, but bring them back from their state of alert.

Avoiding

Sometimes we start avoiding the critique, by reasoning and seeking explanations from external factors that would make our performance shortcomings more understandable. This might involve students twisting the feedback information in their mind to better fit their understanding of their performance. After all, it is easier to alter the received information than yourself. That is why students may “hear what they want to hear” because it is more comfortable for them. While it is important to reflect and understand why we function how we function, focusing on external conditions doesn’t help us alter our own behaviour. 

When a student is avoiding your feedback, it is important to draw attention to the goals and objectives; the external conditions will be the same the next time, and to achieve different results (the goals/objectives) need a change in the student’s actions, not the surroundings. Ask questions to make sure the student understands clearly what you are trying to communicate to them as feedback and to see they are not just bending the message in their mind to better suit their own (flawed) perceptions.

Blaming

This is a more active version of avoiding; your student might start blaming you and everyone else (i.e. pilots and colleagues) for their poor performance. “The separation on the final wouldn’t have been too tight had the pilots just slowed down in time.” This way we try to shift the focus away from ourselves to protect our own ego.

When a student starts to point fingers at others, ask questions regarding the student’s performance. “What could’ve YOU done differently in the situation?” Forcing the student to think about their own performance will help them reflect as well as assume responsibility for their actions.

Defensive coping

Sometimes a student might start completely ignoring the feedback over a longer period of time, combined with a notable performance decline. When confronted, the student might seem to think everything is going well. He/she might even agree with your feedback, but still, no observable change in behaviour is achieved. This is called defensive coping; a survival strategy in which the student has adopted a false positive perception of his/her performance, based on a self-protective pattern that defends the student’s self-confidence from outer threats.

In this case, the student is not receiving your feedback but has logged off completely. They will not be able to meet any performance or training objectives unless helped back on track. If suspecting that a student is in this mode, a comprehensive assessment of the student’s situation needs to be performed by the training organisation and made sure that the student understands the severity of the situation as well. This will require putting the training on hold and reviewing the whole training process for the said student. Still, if dealt with accordingly, there is no reason why the student would not perform after taking care of the situation.

Inspired by: https://medium.com/seek-blog/learn-how-people-really-respond-to-feedback-822de0f46c87

Season's Greetings from Lektor

ATC Instructors deserve their own logo

Last month Lektor launched a new, special event, which is the International Day of the ATC Instructor. The launch was received quite enthusiastically around the world and we got way over one hundred individual participating as Founders of this day.

We created a Wall of Champions showcasing the names of each Founder and this Wall is accessible on our website. Later down the line, we will create a physical plaque as well and set it up in our headquarter office.

This, however is not quite enough, we thought. Let’s take it further and create an icon for it. Something that reminds us of the work ATC Instructors do and that reminds us of this day. It could be something you can carry or wear to show the world your heart pumps for these heroes.

A moment all instructors really live and work for is to see students learning. Some call this moment as epiphany, some as penny dropping, some as pieces clicking together. It is something sudden and fast, and brings a big change. We at Lektor, like to think of this moment as a lightbulb moment. It is the second, when student realises how something works, what something means, or how to do something.

Often learning is a slow process and it takes time to get one’s head around new things, but sometimes it can come to you suddenly like a flash. A light comes on and illuminates the things that have been hidden in the dark. It reveals the path for someone who did not know where to go before. It also brings warmth and a feeling of safety to something that was cold, dark and scary. When the light is switched on, the learners “see” things differently. They experience feeling of being safe because they are not lost anymore. Learning has happened.

This post introduces the new icon for ATC Instructors in the form of logo with more symbolism, than in a Kubrick movie. It shows an Instructor’s headphone wired up to a lightbulb, which has the glowing filaments forming the letters ATC. The headphone represents the instructor who is connected to the learner, represented by the bulb, which feeds from the knowledge of the instructor. The light and heat come from within the learner, not from the instructor. This tells about the inner processes of the learner. ATC is the vehicle of light and heat representing the context of work and learning.

As you see, the icon has many levels and possible explanations. I ask you to send your own “readings” into this logo as a comment on this post or on our LinkedIn update about this. In the meantime, we have updated the look of the Wall of Champions to include this new logo.

Happy analysing and don’t forget to elbow bump an ATC Instructor when you see one.

MVP out this week! We feel like winners!

Drumroll, please! We have given birth to something new and exciting at our Wonderland office. In case design jargon threw you off, MVP stands for ‘minimum viable product’ and for us in this case it means sample content modules on a virtual learning platform. We have created modules and lessons, and we are now surveying our test audience on their experience. Hearts are pounding and the excitement is palpable as we are waiting for the results. 

Lektor has taken the bull by the horns and decided to focus on online solutions in order to make modern learning methodologies a golden standard in the industry. In learning, what works in the classroom, most often works in an online environment as well. The learners need to be kept active and we must try our best to avoid dumping loads of information on them. They need to be ‘doing’ and not just passively ‘consuming’. Too much too fast will overload the learner’s capacity to process information. Hence microlearning units of information and tasks. This means that you can learn in small bits and returning to the material becomes effortless as you don’t have to worry about finding out where you left off in an exhausting bulk of text or in lengthy videos. 

Designing feedback can be challenging when learners take a virtual course without instructor always available. We believe that immediate feedback promotes learning, because when you can test your knowledge and get feedback from your choices, learning happens. 

We’ve been able to start testing and reiterating in about a month’s time, so this baby will see the daylight after some proper hatching. We’ll invite you to the celebration. In the meantime, stay safe and keep washing those hands, peeps!