Definition
Any teaching aid, handout, visual, model, document, or reference item an instructor uses alongside a lesson plan to help present, illustrate, or reinforce the material being taught.
Plain English
The extra stuff an instructor brings to a lesson — handouts, diagrams, charts, models, videos — to help the student understand the topic.
Context Anchor
Seen in lesson plans, where the instructor lists the items needed to teach the lesson effectively.
Derivation
Support comes from a Latin word meaning “to carry or hold up.” Material refers to the things used for a purpose. In this setting, support material is the material that “holds up” the main lesson by making the teaching easier to understand.
Why Pilots Care
For instructors, listing support material in the lesson plan ensures everything needed to teach the lesson effectively is prepared and on hand. For students, it signals what tools or references will be used so they can follow along and review afterward.
Intuition Check
Support material does not mean the main lesson itself. It means the items that help the instructor teach the lesson clearly.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor's lesson plan listed the sectional chart, a wind triangle worksheet, and an E6B as support material for the cross-country planning lesson.
Example Sentence 2
Check that every piece of support material matches the objectives listed in the lesson plan.