Diver Training: How much is enough?

[The Chairman]

The efficiency of any instructor is always subject to improvement. Regardless, if it was established that you could certify your average student in 25 hours of training (regardless of your efficiency) are you saying that if you trained that student for 50 hours, you wouldn't see an increase in diver competence?

That's precisely what I am NOT saying. I have seen a lot of bored students in class. They patiently kneel on the bottom and wait. and wait. and wait. They wait as their instructor slowly moves through the class doing one skill after another. A caring instructor reduces the waiting and keeps their students from getting bored while kneeling on the bottom and waiting their turn.

Again, there are many, many ways that a class can be extended that does nothing to improve the skills or comprehension of the students. There are also a number or ways to complicate the class or make it harder that accomplishes nothing. Simply having a LOOOOOOOONG class does not necessarily translate into a thorough or even a competent class.

 

[DCBC]

...but I feel like I'd be ill-prepared for the conditions here and would just be the worst buddy ever.

I appreciated your comments and believe that many of today's students feel unprepared to dive after they're certified. I chalk this up to instruction that is too short and doesn't build your confidence. The industry focus of 'breaking down' a program of instruction that did prepared a diver to rescue his Buddy, plan a dive, accurately assess conditions, deal with waves, surf and poor visibility, project gas consumption, etc. I understand the financial reasons for the changes (why charge someone once rather than 3 or 4 times), but along with it comes the risk of diver's not continuing because they feel unprepared or incompetent. I refuse to run my classes that way. My divers need to gain experience, but they are capable of feeling confident and diving safely as they do.

---------- Post added December 20th, 2012 at 01:31 PM ----------

...I have seen a lot of bored students in class. They patiently kneel on the bottom and wait. and wait. and wait. They wait as their instructor slowly moves through the class doing one skill after another. A caring instructor reduces the waiting and keeps their students from getting bored while kneeling on the bottom and waiting their turn.

Of course. How would increasing your program length affect the way you teach? Don't you feel capable of teaching a longer program (with expanded knowledge and skills) the same way as you would teach a shorter program?

Again, there are many, many ways that a class can be extended that does nothing to improve the skills or comprehension of the students. There are also a number or ways to complicate the class or make it harder that accomplishes nothing. Simply having a LOOOOOOOONG class does not necessarily translate into a thorough or even a competent class.

What I'm hearing is that you don't want to expand upon what you currently teach. If you did, nothing would be gained by the student. Any program that's longer than yours results in student waiting and boredom. All 'long' SCUBA programs are taught by inefficient Instructors who move slowly and don't make learning fun, just difficult. Where do you come up with these ideas??? Your logic totally escapes me!

 

[boulderjohn]

I appreciated your comments and believe that many of today's students feel unprepared to dive after they're certified. I chalk this up to instruction that is too short and doesn't build your confidence.

My field is education--curriculum and instruction theory and design. Over 40 years ago a very poorly constructed but influential study (The Coleman Report) led to the absolutely incorrect conclusion that the conditions of student success were beyond the control of the teacher. Research over the past two decades has turned that conclusion on its head. ALL research on teacher performance in that time has shown that the difference between top performers and bottom performers are night and day. The two most important factors in that difference are 1) instructional philosophy (top performers are convinced that their decisions matter; bottom performers believe success is up to the student) and 2) instructional technique (bottom performers are incredibly dedicated--often vehemently so--to the use of methodologies popular 40 years ago that have been shown to be highly ineffective.)

To give you an idea of the difference, one day a teacher walked into our office at the end of a class period with a look of wonder. She had just tried a totally new way to teach a topic she had taught for 20 years. Her students got it all in that class period. She was done. It traditionally took her two weeks to get to the same level on that topic. Research shows that top performers can bring students to a high level of performance in much less time than average teachers, and the bottom performers may never get students there.

To give one example related to scuba, we have talked in the Instructor to Instructor forum about the differences associated with focusing on buoyancy skills throughout OW instruction. Many (and I suspect most) OW instructors spend little to no time on buoyancy. Students are taught skills overweighted on their knees. They spend little to no time actually swimming while neutrally buoyant. In contrast, some instructors have students in horizontal, neutrally buoyant postures throughout instruction, and they have students swimming while neutrally buoyant at times when other instructors have them kneeling and watching other people perform skills. People who use that approach universally report that their students are completing the OW course at a much, much higher level of ability than they did when they taught the old way, and they are reaching the level in LESS TIME than in the traditional approach.

You seem to think that time is the only factor in student achievement. I assure you that ALL RESEARCH says the opposite.

 

[The Chairman]

Once the cry of the industry was quality education; now it's make as much profit as you can!

I forgot to address this. Can you show us evidence of this? What agency has suggested that profit is more important than quality education? I think you are assigning motives that are simply not there. Almost every shop is in is for the love of the sport. Sure, they need to be fiscally solvent, but there's no shame in that. In fact, there's no shame in making a profit. But I certainly don't see the unmitigated greed you refer to.

 

[fjpatrum]

Of course. How would increasing your program length affect the way you teach? Don't you feel capable of teaching a longer program (with expanded knowledge and skills) the same way as you would teach a shorter program?

What I'm hearing is that you don't want to expand upon what you currently teach. If you did, nothing would be gained by the student. Any program that's longer than yours results in student waiting and boredom. All 'long' SCUBA programs are taught by inefficient Instructors who move slowly and don't make learning fun, just difficult. Where do you come up with these ideas??? Your logic totally escapes me!

While NetDoc in no way needs my help, please let me respond as a newb who is still relatively fresh from OW. I don't think he's saying he (or his students) couldn't do more with a longer course. I think he's saying most OW courses (and most students) are filled, at least in pool time, with a lot of "dead space" where, by necessity, an instructor deals with one or two specific students and the rest "dawdle". Until all of that inefficiency is removed, is there really a lot of point to extending the course? Wouldn't the instructor, at least, be better served (in a $/hour context) to improve his/her teaching methods first? Wouldn't the student also benefit from that by getting more time of actual practice without actually extending their allotted time for said practice?

In my OW course we had 11 students for the pool sessions. We had 1 instructor, 2 assistant instructors, and a DM candidate. Even with all those pros available, many of the students didn't do anything except kneel on the bottom when they weren't specifically being evaluated for skills. Myself and one other guy were the only two people I saw "practicing" skills when it "wasn't their turn".

That leaves a lot of room for increased efficiency from the instructor(s). I don't think anyone could honestly say (or believe) that increasing student/instructor exposure through a combination of better efficiency and/or a longer course would be detrimental to any student.

 

[rhwestfall]

Almost every shop is in is for the love of the sport. Sure, they need to be fiscally solvent, but there's no shame in that. In fact, there's no shame in making a profit. But I certainly don't see the unmitigated greed you refer to.

no, because they make up for it by selling split fins & snorkels ......

sorry, that was an attempt at humor....

As I said before, the argument here is preaching to the choir. You guys fighting so robustly here are the true champions of the sport. You are here because you care.

 

[boulderjohn]

I do believe there are shops that have a misguided notion of instruction and the idea of ultimately maintaining a profitable business. These unenlightened shops will short cut instruction for the goal of making the best possible profit in the OW class.

A more enlightened shop will realize that true long-term profitability comes from repeat business. A diver who gets certified, goes on a trip, and has a miserable experience will not be back. A diver that has a great time will be more likely to return to dive again, and that diver is more likely to purchase equipment.

I think a lot of this has to do with location. I was initially certified in a resort area, and I realize that many of their students will never be back regardless of the quality of instruction. I am an avid diver who has dived all over the world, but I have never been back to the area that certified me. Also, where I live in Colorado, we have no attractive local diving at all. By far most of our students get certified in anticipation of a single vacation, and they may never visit such a place again. In contrast, a place like Florida has a real possibility of having every local student become a lifetime customer.

---------- Post added December 20th, 2012 at 10:53 AM ----------

In my OW course we had 11 students for the pool sessions. We had 1 instructor, 2 assistant instructors, and a DM candidate. Even with all those pros available, many of the students didn't do anything except kneel on the bottom when they weren't specifically being evaluated for skills. Myself and one other guy were the only two people I saw "practicing" skills when it "wasn't their turn".

This is a good example. When I have enough students to have an assistant, students who are not working on skills are swimming about with the assistant(s) swimming with them. You cannot believe how much that does for diving skills.

 

[The Chairman]

Even with all those pros available, many of the students didn't do anything except kneel on the bottom when they weren't specifically being evaluated for skills.

This is why I don't allow kneeling in the pool! If there is any wait time, the students are practicing their hovering. This takes a lot of practice for the average student to master and it's the very first skill I teach while on Scuba.

 

[Thalassamania]

That's precisely what I am NOT saying. I have seen a lot of bored students in class. They patiently kneel on the bottom and wait. and wait. and wait. They wait as their instructor slowly moves through the class doing one skill after another. A caring instructor reduces the waiting and keeps their students from getting bored while kneeling on the bottom and waiting their turn.

Again, I don't know what world you live in or where you have seen this, it does not jibe with my practices or experiences, and I am quite happy that such is not the case. I would find it quite unusual to find bored students kneeling on the bottom waiting. I think that you hold an even more jaundiced view of diving instruction than I do. Your assumption that all longer instructional programs are wasteful of time and fit into some fantasy paradigm of your own creation is somewhat insulting and smacks of the fable of the blind men describing an elephant.

Again, there are many, many ways that a class can be extended that does nothing to improve the skills or comprehension of the students. There are also a number or ways to complicate the class or make it harder that accomplishes nothing. Simply having LOOOOOOOONG class does not necessarily translate into a thorough or even a competent class.

If length is the only measure, then simply having a long class does not translate into quality, however, having too short a class guarantees that only the "naturals" will ever meet a high standard of performance.

 

[The Chairman]

Again, I don't know what world you live in or where you have seen this, it does not jibe with my practices or experiences, and I am quite happy that such is not the case.

With all due respect, your classes are not "normal" by industry standards and for good reasons. Just a couple of posts above yours, this was written:

Even with all those pros available, many of the students didn't do anything except kneel on the bottom when they weren't specifically being evaluated for skills. Myself and one other guy were the only two people I saw "practicing" skills when it "wasn't their turn".

This is a pretty frequent occurrence

If length is the only measure, then simply having a long class does not translate into quality,

Bingo. Yahtzee. You're catching on. Why waste time if all you're doing is making a class long for length's sake or because you aren't efficient?

having too short a class guarantees that only the "naturals" will ever meet a high standard of performance.

I would agree and that's why my classes are never too short.