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

[Mark Duddridge]

Your responses bring up another question...

Is there normally classroom time associated with the AOW, or is all the "theoretical instruction" done independently by the student using the course book?

 

[Sideband]

nevermind

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Your responses bring up another question...

Is there normally classroom time associated with the AOW, or is all the "theoretical instruction" done independently by the student using the course book?

Classroom is not a term with walls for most instructors, just the ones working at real schools and instructor development centers (IDC's). A picnic table under a tree or the bow of a dive boat are my usual classroom.

Each agency is different, although some are similar. In PADI AOW, we are required to go over the knowledge review (KR) for the dive, plan the dive, have a briefing before the dive and de-brief after the dive. The instructor manual has a completed KR and a page with general open water considerations, performance requirements and recommended training sequence and techniques. That's two pages per dive. The Adventures in Diving manual is all PADI really gives us to work with.

At the very least the instructor should give the students Bob's (NWGreatfulDiver) gas management worksheet; I prefer to go over it and use it in the planning stage. Even doing all that, an instructor could more than follow PADI standards and still have not much in the way of classroom time.

 

[Mark Duddridge]

At the very least the instructor should give the students Bob's (NWGreatfulDiver) gas management worksheet; I prefer to go over it and use it in the planning stage.[/I].

Is the gas management worksheet you refer to publicly available?

 

[JSharp13]

Classroom is not a term with walls for most instructors, just the ones working at real schools and instructor development centers (IDC's). A picnic table under a tree or the bow of a dive boat are my usual classroom.

Each agency is different, although some are similar. In PADI AOW, we are required to go over the knowledge review (KR) for the dive, plan the dive, have a briefing before the dive and de-brief after the dive. The instructor manual has a completed KR and a page with general open water considerations, performance requirements and recommended training sequence and techniques. That's two pages per dive. The Adventures in Diving manual is all PADI really gives us to work with.

At the very least the instructor should give the students Bob's (NWGreatfulDiver) gas management worksheet; I prefer to go over it and use it in the planning stage. Even doing all that, an instructor could more than follow PADI standards and still have not much in the way of classroom time.

Agreed. When I said classroom time, I should have said "classroom" time. With AOW, it is included in the brief. Your responsibility as a dive student is to read the book and ask questions about anything that you don't understand. The instructors job is to go over your KR and make sure you understood everything. In my opinion, anyway.

 

[caseybird]

I would feel ripped off if I was sent out with a DM Candidate. An experienced DM will give you much better guidance and feedback than a DMC. Our shop sends the AOW students out in buddy pairs, the students plan and execute the dive, (course, depth, time, NDL and air calcs) with a DM shadowing them. The DM is there to take over in case of problems and debrief on performance. Most student buddy teams do a great job by the end of the course.

 

[b1gcountry]

Is the gas management worksheet you refer to publicly available?

Bob gives them out for free at all of his (also free) lectures on Dive Planning. I had the chance to attend one, and it was a very informative hour and a half. The handout he put together is also very high quality. I would PM him, and see if he would email you a digital copy, or mail you a hard copy. I don't know if it is available for download anywhere.

Tom

 

[Mark Duddridge]

Bob gives them out for free at all of his (also free) lectures on Dive Planning. I had the chance to attend one, and it was a very informative hour and a half. The handout he put together is also very high quality. I would PM him, and see if he would email you a digital copy, or mail you a hard copy. I don't know if it is available for download anywhere.

Tom

Ice9 very generously offered to email the document to me.

 

[Mark Duddridge]

Was not thrilled with how the AOW course went this weekend...

"Deep" dive was only to 70 feet and did not include a timed test above water and then at depth.

Underwater Navigation was good in that I actually learned something, but my buddy and I did the dive alone without even the presence of the DM candidate. Instructor watched our bubbles from shore to make sure we did our shapes correctly.

Night dive was a disappointment as well. Visibility was only about 4-6 feet. My buddy got a cramp and went for the surface after 14 minutes. When I realized he was gone I signalled to the instructor he was gone. Instructor didn't understand what I was signaling and continued the dive for another 6 minutes before the DM candidate noticed he was missing. Instructor then signalled for us to go up. Total dive length... 20 minutes. I realize I showed bad judgment in this situation. I should have immediately gone up with my buddy. I assumed the instructor's lack of concern that he was missing was an indication my buddy had let him know he was going up. Unacceptable assumption. I was completely in the wrong.

Next day...

Instead of doing Peak Performance Buoyancy (which was what I wanted to take but would have necessitated him getting wet so he could watch us), our instructor decided to instead do a "mock altitude dive." So... that specialty consisted of him spending 5 minutes going over the effects of altitude on diving and then sending us out for a casual dive with the DM candidate.

Search and recovery was fun and a good learning experience. Instructor didn't join us for the dive, but the DM candidate did a good job of leading the dive and exercises.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was extremely disappointed with the course. It was enough to cause me to consider dropping the Rescue Diver course I have scheduled with the same instructor and shop next weekend. I definitely won't be doing my DM and Instructor courses with this shop.

• DM candidate, who did most of the supervision, only had around 35 logged dives... same number I have logged.
• Instructor only joined us for 2 out of the 5 dives.
• Briefings were good, but debriefings were virtually nonexistent.
• Deep dive was only to 70 feet and didn't include the necessary timed tests.
• Instructor didn't force us to retake the night dive despite the fact that my buddy only spent 14 minutes underwater, and I showed poor buddy judgment.
• "Altitude Dive" was a joke.

I'll be the first to admit I don't have a lot of course experience so maybe my expectations were too high and the way things were handled was acceptable and normal. Still... I'd hoped for more.

 

[b1gcountry]

I would definitely drop the rescue course if at all possible. You were disappointed in the AOW, so you will probably be disappointed in the Rescue class. Where do you live? Maybe you could meet up with someone on the board to go over some buoyancy stuff with a more experienced diver on the board? If you're between STL and Chicago, I would be willing to meet with you...

Tom