Any Advice For Trainers?

I completed my first year solo with Prime as a company driver last month, and next week the wife is starting the PSD program. And...I'm training her!

I'm excited (and nervous). Just wondering if the trainers on this board had any advice to impart. I'm most concerned with teaching her to pass the backing maneuvers.

I plan to let her drive pretty much all of the psd weeks, barring a delivery in downtown Chicago or something similarly hairy (or if she gets too tired/frustrated to be productive). Also I plan on teaching her to properly back, and practicing it while we are out. Not sure if a couple of weeks is enough to drill in enough to pass the backing section of the cdl test though. My trainer never had me back in psd, just spent an hour on the pad teaching me the points to hit (turn wheel till you see the "v" on the trailer, etc...).

We will be teaming (staying on the company side) upon her successful completion of the program. Please help me not to screw her up! I will be routing in to take the instructor classes, not sure if they are helpful or not.

I would recomend to anyone Instructing/teaching or thinking about doing it, to stop in at a Pilot shop at a local Airport and buy the Study book on "The Fundlementals of Instruction" (FOI) maybe $20... It covers the steps in Learning, positive verses negative motivation, explain- show- student- perform ect... It's one of the Skills an FAA Flight/Ground instructor has to pass... The Skills learned from this book can be applied to any type of Learning.

Matt, send me a private message and I'll give you my number so we can talk this over on the phone. I can answer any questions you have about the program on the phone and give you my personal tips on it.

We have a category of articles called "The Trainer's Perspective" which you'll find interesting. The articles were written to inform students about the way the trainer sees things but you and your wife will both pick up some tips from them.

Thanks Brett, the articles by TruckerMike were especially informative. Forgot about the articles here, even though I probably read 100 of them back when I was trying to decide on this career.

Sent you a pm Daniel, I'll try to give you a call this next week while I'm in instructor classes. All this work just to train one person, ha.

I would recomend to anyone Instructing/teaching or thinking about doing it, to stop in at a Pilot shop at a local Airport and buy the Study book on "The Fundlementals of Instruction" (FOI) maybe $20... It covers the steps in Learning, positive verses negative motivation, explain- show- student- perform ect... It's one of the Skills an FAA Flight/Ground instructor has to pass... The Skills learned from this book can be applied to any type of Learning.

I probably won't be able to get a copy of this before I'm thrown into this but thanks. If it's good enough to teach someone to train flying it should work for driving! If I have a rough day ill just think of the poor guy up in the air sitting in the passenger seat.