Diving Education Today

[Thalassamania]

I think that's likely part of it, we get very few "Jaws" questions, but a lot of questions about DCS and such.

 

[openmindOW]

Most people have no idea what online education is really like.

That's probably true, BoulderJohn. I appreciate what you are saying. I understand that on-line learning, if properly designed, can probably work well.

My view is that in face-to-face Instruction (in-personam teaching) the Instructor can emphasize points well and can get real-time feedback from his students. He can see if his students are "getting it." He can tell if they are paying attention or are starting to day-dream.

For example, when I teach I emphasize to my students that they should never enter an over-head environment. I emphasize that. My tone changes. I look at the faces of my students and I can tell if they are listening.

I think that is an advantage of face-to-face Instruction.

 

[boulderjohn]

I think that is an advantage of face-to-face Instruction.

There are many advantages to face to face instruction. There are many advantages to online instruction. Whenever I design the latter I try as hard as I can to find ways to incorporate what I know works best in the classroom. There are some things I can't do. On the other hand, there are many things I can do online that I can't do in the classroom.

If you read my column from the other day, you will see I stole the phrase "accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative" from an old song to make that point.

By the way, when a face to face student starts to day dream and misses something, that student is often totally lost for the rest of the lesson. That is why it is so important for you to catch it. When an online student starts to daydream, who cares? After the daydreaming is done, the student goes right back to work without having missed a thing.

When an eLearning student comes to me with his or her certification of completion, I do a quick check to see if the key points were understood. I then go over some things that I feel are important but are not sufficiently emphasized in the curriculum. We plan some dives together. Then the student takes the exam. I haven't had an eLearning student get a single question wrong on the exam yet.

I am not sure what is so downright evil in that system.

 

[Thalassamania]

John, there's nothing evil in the system, assuming that you agree with the depth and breath of the material and were the bar is placed. My problem is not with the medium, but with the message. It's like the computer vs. table argument, I don't care what device you use to figure it out, what I care is that you use that device properly and understand the underlying theory. Same for e-learning, when it comes to diving I have yet to see one that begins to have enough top. I also like the chance I get in lecture and seminar to get to know the individuals whom I am teaching.

 

[boulderjohn]

I also like the chance I get in lecture and seminar to get to know the individuals whom I am teaching.

If you are talking about a typical semester-length class (as opposed to a shorter, focused course such as OW academics), then there is a difference only in poorly designed instruction. In fact, in a properly designed online course, the course materials take the lecture part away and leave you more time for the interaction you desire. You only lose interaction in a bad class (and they definitely exist) where the goal is to feed students information and give a test to see if the got it. If you are properly teaching thinking skills and the effective use of information rather than mere memorization, you must have plenty of teacher-student interaction.

As a scientist, you may find this paper I co-wrote interesting in that regard.

 

[beester]

I don't think any training program will ever get subsequent fatalities to zero. There are things like immersion pulmonary edema, which is not age-related and is entirely unpredictable. There are powerful down currents. There are closed head injuries when approaching a boat in heavy seas. Diving is like flying or rock climbing . . . there ARE forces more powerful than oneself, and things that can happen despite totally appropriate care that can lead to a death.

And even fairly comprehensive training is not going to prevent people from becoming complacent for from forgetting something -- a review of the CCR deaths will show that, I think. Many of the people who I have read about in the last few years had both adequate CCR training (and I don't think you can argue that most of that is standard OW quality) and some kind of rigorous advanced training (tech, cave) as well.

I think programs like Scripps, or LA County, or GUE/UTD OW are wonderful, and I'm quite sure the people who graduate from them move much more quickly to be truly independent, safe and joyful divers. But I know that I wouldn't have signed up for any of them. If you had made learning to dive a multiple-month process costing more than $1000, I wouldn't have done it. I didn't even know if I was going to LIKE diving.

I don't think everybody has to train that way. I think you can turn out a reasonable novice diver from the class my husband teaches. Perhaps you can't do it in a weekend, but a three week class with six pool sessions and two days of open water diving CAN prepare people to do simple dives safely on their own. If you combine that with instructors who have immediately visible excellent skills, and who make it clear that further training should be in the plans of anybody who intends to continue to dive, I think you can do a decent job of things. Not everybody will dive like Thal, or Larry Green, or the guys who explored the Britannic. But not everybody needs to.

I've tried to read through much of what's been discussed.. in the end I don't think we'll get there... but Lynne is pointing to some issues which are the core of this discussion.

The basic issue is not... how do we make this sport 100% safe. We can't. Accross the board we'll have accidents happening. The point is how do we make the training adequatly safe without pushing the average diver away.

My premise is: YOU LEARN TO DIVE BY DIVING ALOT however, the big paradox is most 'divers' that keep at OW-AOW are not regular divers. They'll never be.

We don't need 80-100 hours courses with alot of aquatic training, skills, theoretical background. Because the potential divers interested in this... the ones where the bug bit hard... they will do that themselves. They dive and dive... they'll notice that more diving means getting better... They will start diving locally because once or twice a year on holiday is not nearly enough, they will get to know the local diving community and meet the mentors of that community. They will read up, do some more training, dive alot and then some more training. For these people there are enough courses that give that extra depth.

What we need to do is give the beginning mom and dad holiday diver the necessary tools to be A reasonably safe, B comfortable. If he feels reasonably safe and more importantly comfortable...maybe he's going to like what he's doing and maybe progress into a regular diver who will do the things stated above (dive dive dive, mentor, learn, training, dive). Maybe you only reach 10% who might progress but you'll have them. The others... well I'm sorry they won't take your balls out 100 hour course anyway because they are doing it only once or only once a year on holiday. And even for them the accident % will still be reasonably low.

The skills that we need to add are the ones stated by some other posters. The most important ones are TRIM/BYOANCY (= comfort) and problem solving skills. (as stated by trace).

 

[Thalassamania]

If you are talking about a typical semester-length class (as opposed to a shorter, focused course such as OW academics), then there is a difference only in poorly designed instruction. In fact, in a properly designed online course, the course materials take the lecture part away and leave you more time for the interaction you desire. You only lose interaction in a bad class (and they definitely exist) where the goal is to feed students information and give a test to see if the got it. If you are properly teaching thinking skills and the effective use of information rather than mere memorization, you must have plenty of teacher-student interaction.

As a scientist, you may find this paper I co-wrote interesting in that regard.

I will read it and get back to you.

I have no problem changing media, expecially when can take advantage of the additional features that computer technlogy offers. I use MathWhizz extensively for math interventions and I hope next year to be using it as the instructional base for an entire test case classroom. I think it's great. But that is not the same thing, we are rather agreed as to what the course standards are for math. I have no doubt that you could (provided the budget was there) take the NOAA manual, Navy Manual, International Code of Practice for Scientific Diving, AAUS Standards and Practices, thanked posts from ScubaBoard, my lecture notes and any number of other sources and come up with a web based document that is greater than the sum of the parts. But that's not going to happen, the budget isn't there, and so I am left to say that the e-learning systems for teaching diving are all, IMHO, woefull inadequate, it's sort of like trying to teach Shakespeare from the Classics Illustrated Comics.

 

[TSandM]

Having just finished the last of my knowledge reviews for my DM class, I'm not sure that it's e-learning that's at fault, Thal. The book was learning at the Classic Comics level, too.

 

[Kingpatzer]

Having just finished the last of my knowledge reviews for my DM class, I'm not sure that it's e-learning that's at fault, Thal. The book was learning at the Classic Comics level, too.

If it's the PADI DM course, I think you're giving it too much credit, at least the classic comics have good art.

That's definitely a course where what matters is the instructor -- 'cause the instructional materials are woefully inadequate.

I happened to have a great instructor -- a guy with a commercial diving background who's been a CD for decades and who is very serious about having the highest possible level of instruction in his courses.

But really, the PADI DM course is ultimately about only two things: learning how to pimp for PADI and learning how to demonstrate the 20 water skills.

Which is frankly quite sad as the course could be so much more than that.

 

[Thalassamania]

I've tried to read through much of what's been discussed.. in the end I don't think we'll get there... but Lynne is pointing to some issues which are the core of this discussion.

...

The problem is that you use lots of words, lots of times, like adequately and reasonable that I suspect come no where near meaning the same thing to the two of us. Also your focus on "trim and balance" (which I agree is important) brings it up ahead of more important survival skills like mask clearing and regulator remove and replace.

Having just finished the last of my knowledge reviews for my DM class, I'm not sure that it's e-learning that's at fault, Thal. The book was learning at the Classic Comics level, too.

I know, and that's DM!