Curious Question.

[diversteve]

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Pool's open...

 

[LiteHedded]

I hope so.

in response to the OP I would say my cavern course I guess

 

[Nemrod]

NAUI Scuba Diver in 1966. It was twelve weeks long, twice a week, for four hours. You had to swim, dive, doff and don, navigate blind, buddy breath, breath hold swim two lengths of the pool and do push ups and actually learn to scuba dive. N

 

[ucfdiver]

I'd say Basic cave was where I learned the most, and also the most mentally challenging.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am not going to name the actual course that was the hardest. Instead, I will describe as if it were hypothetical and make a generic statement.

I am a recreational instructor and a professional educator well steeped in educational theory. Throughout the hardest course I took I wanted to scream because there was no reason for it to be the hardest. The instructor used poor instructional sequencing and left out key skills needed to complete tasks. We had inadequate demonstrations, if any, and little or no practice before being evaluated. The course was essentially a series of failed skill evaluations until success was finally achieved. I believe I could have completed the course in 1/3 the time and effort with better instruction.

I have attempted in a small and unscientific way to figure out the reason for it. The instructor told us up front that the course would not be like recreational scuba where people "hold your hand." I think that by "hold your hand" he meant "give you instruction." I think he somehow blended the idea that the skills being taught are hard, so he had to make the learning hard, too. It was as if making students struggle to learn skills reinforced the idea that the skills were difficult to learn. I think it also brought pride to the instructor to be able to talk about how long it takes students to pass his class, which means he must be an instructor with high standards.

My fellow classmates and I made our biggest advances by searching the Internet for tips, telling each other what we learned, and getting together on our own to practice what we had learned.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Just out of curiosity what in your opinion was the hardest, most benificial, favorite, educational, and/or Contntribuiting Dive class/course you've taken? This question goes out to all divers, be it in the Open Water Recreational, Overhead, Technical, and Rebreather Diving realm....

Hardest - GUE Tech 1 because the instructor was literally trying to kill us.

Most beneficial - PDIC Open Water because it prepared me very well to be a diver.

Favorite - NSS-CDS Full Cave because I learned so much about cave diving.

Educational - PDIC Instructor because I learned to over-learn.

Contributing - Lifeguard Training because it changed the way I view diving safety.

 

[The Chairman]

It was as if making students struggle to learn skills reinforced the idea that the skills were difficult to learn. I think it also brought pride to the instructor to be able to talk about how long it takes students to pass his class, which means he must be an instructor with high standards.

I would hazard a guess that he whines about the "lower" standards in today's diving education as well!

 

[boulderjohn]

I would hazard a guess that he whines about the "lower" standards in today's diving education as well!

He most certainly does.

EDIT: And he has great stories about how his instructor role-model, whom he clearly admires greatly, uses colorful and clever language to humiliate and embarrass students who make mistakes.

 

[The Chairman]

It amazes me that some still see abject humiliation as a valid teaching tool.

 

[InTheDrink]

Well given that I'm preceded by the 'Chairman' I'll chime in with an honest answer and expect to get laughed at for being an Internet diver.

The single most beneficial resource that has advanced my abilities and awareness as a diver has been this board. Sure, it's not a course per se, but pretty much any aspect of any course ever devised I am sure is discussed on this board somewhere and what's more, the nuances, rationales and counter-rationales are here too.

I'm only AOW/Nitrox so I can't really make many comments on formal courses, and I do want to do more (studying for my Rescue at the mo) but I do think my diving has come along beyond all proportion to what I think I would have otherwise achieved because of this board. That in conjunction with some pretty interesting, varied and sometimes scary dives (edit: and the dissection of these on these boards to see what I could learn/do better)

J