Lesson plans / ATTACHMENT

Note my inclusion of an attachment. This is a 1 hr. lesson plan by Bill Gammel. My only comment is that the exact times of each event are not listed. Gordy

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Mike raises a great question and a catch 22 for many CCI or MCCI candidates. You have to start somewhere and you really should teach as much as possible BEFORE testing. Many candidates I have worked with do not feel qualified to teach until after they have the FFF certification, but you must "practice" teaching anyway to become a quality instructor candidate.

Gordy you have given great advice about lesson planning and there is no substitute for creating written plans.. I might recommend to go so far as to create handouts also. Gordy, you said "Be careful to have the fly rod in your student's hand most of the time.... not yours". This is more sage advice. I no longer take a rod when teaching classes. I borrow a students rod when I need to demonstrate which forces me to give it back to the student quickly. I love the freedom of having my hands free not having to keep up with my rod while going from student to student and I demonstrate less and teach more.

A first step for Mike in a group lesson plan might be to give a "chalk talk" (We use a dry erase white boards) and explain the 5 essentials as found in Gammel's writing. (We actually teach 6 essentials at our school including the stop as the 6th essential.) But, Mike specifically asked the question "where to start and what to work on with individuals". I might suggest to him with individuals to start with an analysis using Bruce Richards 6 step method. I did not realize what a powerful tool it was until Bruce spent an afternoon in Atlanta training our instructors in the method. Bruce's method will give the instructor a starting point tailored to each students need, as well as a way to explain it to the student. Even today after thousands of students I use a "cheat sheet" I created to force myself to methodically look at every aspect of the cast. Typically there will be several out-points discovered during the analysis so prioritize them and work on one thing at a time. Often new instructors try to address too many changes too quickly in their effort to be helpful. Take time as over loading a student with too many changes can cause the student to become frustrated. Allow the student time to achieve success that THEY can see or feel. They will be very satisfied with your instruction if THEY recognize improvement...even at the expense of the instructors frustration of not getting to share all of the changes you would like the student to achieve. Allowing the student to walk away from a lesson knowing they improved their cast is a WIN.