When I got certified, my course was a week long, with home study to be done before hand. We spent a couple of hours the first night going over the first three chapter's and the last couple the next night followed by the swim test's. On wednesday night we did confined 1&2, Thursday night we did confined 3&4 with Friday off unless further training was needed. Sat. and Sun. we went to the lake for our checkout dive's. My course hear at the shop is setup the same way and I fell my student's come away with a quality class. My checkout dive's are excactly that, "DIVES" , so the student really gets to play with bouyancy and finning. Let's face it, sure they are not perfect by any means. But if I didn't feel they could dive safely without me, they wouldn't get a c-card. PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!! I have also dealt with Japanese college tranfer student's, where we teach them the book work in two full days (6-7 hours per day) There is usually somewhere around 50 some student's so we use a college classroom to do this. From there they choose an OW weekend for their water portion. This is a 3 day portion where the students stay at a private residence with a private beach. The first day there the students do alot of land drills (to many to list) with a swim test leading right into confined 1&2 after that it is time to relax and a Q&A for those of which feel compelled. The next morning more land drills and finish up with confined 3&4. During the surface interval we have lunch and a compass refresher seminar with a course we make them manuever with a towell over their head's. Back into the staging area to saddle up for OW 1&2 where we have a gridded area to dive within. We make it a game, as we dive we ask student's to be ready for anything, and let them know we may ask them to due a skill, answer some hand signal's, thing's like that. That way all the student's are at their best, and without pointing at someone specific and making them feel uncomfortable you can work on a weakness of theirs. Make sure you ask some of the other student's to do skills as well. I have found that by the end of the weekend, we have turned out some VERY adequate divers. Some I could even say, come away better diver's in the three day course. Yes, it is a cram course, but with all the hand's on and live in training, the ones that want the extra will search it out and the others are there also to get it. Kinda a win win situation. Sure the long course will give them a better understanding of the theory and more time in the pool will help them with bouyancy and such. But does it turn out better diver's? I think to a point, it's like going to a buddies favorite site with him while he's driving. But when you go there without him and your driving, things seem different.
DP
DP