Divemaster Candidate Teaching Advanced Dive... Acceptable and Normal?

[b1gcountry]

That sounds like it is within standards, but you sound like you actually want to learn something during the class, and you probably won't get very much out of it. LDS like to combine as much stuff as possible so they can sell as many classes as possible. If you're not happy, tell the instructor. Unfortunately, the student sometimes has to take the drivers seat to get a better education from the classes.

In fairness, most students just want the cert, and don't really want to learn anything.

Tom

 

[Burnsie]

Read the wrong thing, my bad.

 

[Mark Duddridge]

Thanks for all of your responses. Since it sounds like common practice, I'll accept his proposal that I do my underwater nav with the DM candidate, but I will push to get as much "learning" out of the course as possible so it doesn't end up being just an expensive skills check and c-card.

 

[Don Wray]

Let us know how it goes Mark....have fun

 

[fisherdvm]

Lets see, when I assisted with the AOW, the instructor stayed put. The student went out with me, and did a rectangular dive. He also went out, and back - with me.

As far as I am concern, as long as you are navigating, and you are with a buddy; what difference does it make where the instructor is? He could be on an observation tower and watching your bubbles, and as long as you can nagivate a rectangle, or a triangle, you performed your navigation dive correctly.

Or if he is on shore, and told you to navigate north, west, then south, then west... with the DM candidate, and you got back on shore exactle 20 ft west ... Then you completed your exercise right?

I don't see a problem with it. I think the AOW course is both to teach skill to student who don't know it, and to refine skills of folks who already has it. It certainly possible that someone with military back ground could out navigate his instructor... but that might be rare.

 

[sambolino44]

1. Is it acceptable and normal for someone like a DM candidate to run someone through an AOW dive without an instructor being present on the dive.

2. Is the point of the AOW course (and any other course for that matter) to teach the student new skills or simply a testing process to ensure they are able to successfully complete the course's skill requirements?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts/perspectives on these questions.

I thought the point of "the AOW course (and any other course for that matter)" was to provide an income source for the shops. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get something useful in return. But don't get too caught up in what's correct, proper, or even "acceptable". Welcome to the wild, wacky world of self-regulated industry, and non-standard standards. I'm a big fan of standards organizations like ANSI, DIN, and ISO; and of the idea of standards in general. I think some of those organizations even have some standards concerning dive training. But that's over in Europe; this here is the good ol' US of A! We don't want the government messing around in our business, so don't go making waves.

Seriously, diving is a great way to learn about personal responsibility. Even though you are paying somebody to teach you something, ultimately you are responsible for your own experience. If you have concerns, take them up with the course provider. I think you did a good thing by asking about it here. It doesn't sound out of the ordinary to me, but whether it's acceptable is up to you. Good luck.

 

[RJP]

I'm going to be taking my Advanced Open Water course this weekend.

Mark - based on your other post about weighting/trim I'd be sure to make sure you "get your money's worth" out of the Peak Performance Bouyancy dive.



Seriously, tell the instructor/DM about your weighting/trim concerns and have them really work with you to remove/rearrange the weight to help you really dial it in.

Enjoy!

 

[Pearldiver07]

This has always been a point of debate about the requirements. Actually, very few dives in the PADI AOW require that the instructor physically be in the water and in direct control. The deep dive is one of them.

I actually had a friend take the AOW and the instructor only went in the water on the deep dive. 1 dive of all five. Plus, he couldn't function with a compass. After 20 years of living behind a compass in the military, I don't expect that level of expertise from everybody, but he didn't know how to handle a class and instruct when they had both direct and indirect compasses.

Look, this was an exceptionally bad case of someone who was teaching for $$ and the free trips to San Carlos to do the instruction.

But consider what the instructor is saying and teaching. You'll know if you're getting good instruction that makes you a more informed and trained diver. And if you're with a competent DM in the water, you'll get some first hand feed back on how/what you did. Personally, I always spent direct time with the students during at least one leg of each dive. If there were too many students for me to get decent time with everyone, I tried to split the dives.

If you don't have a DM or instructor with you, how do you know whether you're holding a compass right, turning correctly, etc.? Or for the Search & Recovery dive, that they are laying out the line correctly? A DM, AI, or instructor are all fine for supervision, but how do you evaluate whether the student has successfully completed the required tasks when there is no supervision in the water with them? I haven't been able to answer that one yet.

By the way, I took that friend out after she got her card and went through the skills with her to ensure that she understood what she was supposed to be doing.

 

[String]

In PADI speak here the definition of certified assistant is a qualified and insured dive master NOT a divemaster candidate (who is merely a rescue diver).

Nav and so on really are shallow simple dives and shouldnt require direct supervision in my view.

 

[emttim]

You know the other thing too is that, at least with my instructor, they may not dive outside of the required deep and night dives with the class for AOW because they want you to be independent. In my instructor's own words, "you guys are certified divers now, you shouldn't need me there with you" regarding the dives outside of deep & night. Honestly, he's right. If you're taking AOW, you're obviously an OW diver, and a nav dive say to 30 feet or whatever should be well within the limits of your training.

Sure, you're paying for a class, so of course you want to get your money's worth out of it....but isn't that what's happening when the instructor is there to brief you, debrief you after the dive, offer feedback, and before you even went to the beach you had classroom time and lectures?