A teaching experience using a flight simulator: Educational Simulation in practice

Abstract

The use of appropriate Educatonal Simulaton systems (sofware and hardware for learning purposes) may contribute to the applicaton of the "Learning by Doing" (LbD) paradigm in classroom, thus helping the students to assimilate the theoretcal concepts of a subject and acquire certain pre-defned competencies in a more didactcal way. The main objectve of this work is to conduct a teaching experience using a fight simulaton environment so that the students of Aeronautcal Management degree can assume the role of an aircraf pilot, in order to allow the students understanding the basic processes of the air navigaton and observe how the new technologies can transform and improve these processes. This is especially helpful in classroom to teach the contents of the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme, a European project that introduces a new Air Trafc Management (ATM) paradigm based on several relevant technological and procedural changes that will afect the entre air transportaton system in the short and medium term. During and afer the executon of several actvites with a fight simulator in the classroom, both the performance and satsfacton level of the students regarding the teaching experience have been assessed through four diferent assessment methods, i.e., objectve test, executon test, observaton techniques and attude-opinion survey.