Teaching an aviation course via video conference – comments and observations on the attainment of graduate attributes and learning outcomes

Abstract

While the author was at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs; Colorado, the author taught an Introduction to Aviation course at the School of Engineering and Information Technology located at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra. This paper describes the method of teaching this course via video conference. In this instance, teaching via video conference is markedly different to the techniques employed in distance education. This paper will describe the experience of teaching via video conference as well as some of the perceived shortcomings and pitfalls of being a ‘talking head’. The paper also describes some of the techniques developed in order to ameliorate some of the perceived difficulties of teaching via video conference. The results of a student questionnaire and overall learning outcomes will be discussed with reference to University of New South Wales graduate attributes.