Instructor Requirements- continued...

[Mako Mark]

A new environment is a new environment, no matter what your level of training and experience Jay and it is a prudent person that realizes what they dont know can hurt them. Going from the tropics to the cold is a slap in the face huh? Nice diving in California though.

 

[jlevine]

It was definitely a slap in the face, so to speak, and a good wake up call. I definitely want to take an IDC in the future, perhaps in 2005 but I want to give some thought as to where I see myself living and teaching. I will PM you today or tomorrow about your IDC as well. Looks interesting!

 

[jbd]

What struck me is that perhaps rather than making the course longer and harder,...

Mark, this sentence got me to wondering, What do you think is too short/ too easy and what constitutes a course that is too long/too hard?

In my mind, 4 sessions of 3 hours each with an instructor is too short. My courses were 6 sessions of 4 to 4.5 hours each and sometimes I would wish I could make it 8 sessions. When I thought hard and long about the 8 sessions of 4 to 4.5 hours each it seemed in all honesty to be too long. I came to believe that the 6 sessions I was doing was just about right. What are your thoughts?

make them provisional. for example the first .20 30..50 (pick a number, any number) dives after certification should be under direct supervision of a professional.

I doubt that this would work in landlocked areas. It might work well in resort areas, but here I just don't see anyone paying a DM or instructor to dive with them.

 

[FatCat]

Actually by rearanging things and adding a little information it seems to make a class far easier for the students and for me.

IMO, that's exactly what every instructor does over time. Or at least what every instructor ought to do. Not everyone teaches the same way and not everyone learns the same way. An instructor should be flexible enough to meet the needs of most students. If there are certain segments of the student population an instructor feels ill at ease to teach (eg. children, disabled divers) the instructor should leave such "special needs training" to other instructors who have the skills and inclination to do so.

... Since then the way I teach has changed continuously with the last class I taught being by far the best and easiest. I really found that it wasn't so much a longer class that was needed but a different class.

Absolutely, each course brings its own new experiences and changes my teaching style.

Also in my case I decided that I wanted students more skilled or at least to have a slightly differnt skill set before I even want to take them to open water. I hate it when a class stops moving forward and half drop to the bottom and the other half shoot to the surface. LOL Also realize that most of our open water here wouldn't meet the requirements of confined water so I'm sure that with good enough conditions some things could be moved from confined water to open water that's just as controled.

True, these days when diving with students I move like an arthritic snail. This forces students to control their buoyancy and their finning technique.

As for the second part of your statement, I think I've missed something Mike. Over here, we have no real choice but to maintain the division CW/OW, if only because it's easier on the student to learn skills in a pool without hood and thick gloves, before moving on to (relatively sheltered) open water wearing said hood and gloves. Over here it's full exposure suit all year round.

Again I think there's lots of ways to get there with the important thing being that an agency or instructor wants to.

... snip...

The agencies and the ones who write the standards sure don't have the stones.

There's a lot of moaning about standards on most boards, ranging from "standards are not comprehensive enough" to "standards are to anal". I myself haven't got any problems with standards being as they are. They still allow me enough leeway to teach a good course.

 

[MikeFerrara]

As for the second part of your statement, I think I've missed something Mike. Over here, we have no real choice but to maintain the division CW/OW, if only because it's easier on the student to learn skills in a pool without hood and thick gloves, before moving on to (relatively sheltered) open water wearing said hood and gloves. Over here it's full exposure suit all year round.

That was in response to something Mark said. He lives in the land of warm clear water.

There's a lot of moaning about standards on most boards, ranging from "standards are not comprehensive enough" to "standards are to anal". I myself haven't got any problems with standards being as they are. They still allow me enough leeway to teach a good course.

I agree that standards don't prevent you from teaching a good class for the most part. My problem with them is that you can teach a really lousy class thats perfectly within standards. At least around here, if you take a close look at how many teach and the letter of the standards it becomes pretty clear what's wrong with them.

You're assuming the instructors desire to teach a good class. You can't assume that when assessing the worth of the standards. You need to look at hos the standards force an instructor to provide a "good" class.

Earlier I mentioned classes doing dives where they are kneeling on a platform for 17 minutes and the tour is only the three minutes it takes to beck to the exit. They never dive at all. I mentioned AOW classes where students perform skills like tieing knots while sitting on a platform...and on and on. My point is that all these things are within standards. Instructors who take advantage of that are able to meet standards and pump students through very quickly and never teach them to dive.

Since the standards of some agencies don't require that a student do a good job of diving in any class all the way through instructor training and testing. We actually have instructors whop don't know the difference. If we assume that all instructors are good divers and will work at it until they teach a good class we'd barely need standards at all. The standards only insure minimums and the minimums we have are really minimal and, at that, so many barely get that far.

That, IMO, is the problem with the standards.

 

[FatCat]

Just a general observation:

I started out - like most instructors, I think - teaching classes with the q-cards (slates, cheat sheets, whatever) in hand and by having my students go through skill after skill, followed by 10 to 20 minutes of "tour".

Now I've incorporated most of the skills into the actual dive. You can't dive without clearing your mask or without controlling your buoyancy, so why do students have to do this on call? I find that most skills can be treated this way, with the obvious exception of things like CESA, cramp removal and compass navigation.

But I find that it is much more effective to have students try to control their buoyancy throughout the dive than to have them hover on command. I've said it before: there's nothing in the standards that forbids me to incorporate skills in an actual dive.

There is also the added bonus that this actually drives home the importance of certain skills like mask clearing and BC control. At the same time this kind of skill testing tends to make the OW dives more enjoyable for the students.

Also, announcing that skills like alternate airsource use will be done during the course of a dive, without actually going through the different skills in a fixed order, tends to increase buddy awareness (When is my instructor going to give me the signal? Where is he now? Is my buddy still with me?).

Most importantly: it shows that these skills really are of use.

 

[Mako Mark]

Well this year I have issued a number of scuba diver certs and even though I council my students as the course goes along about the potential problems, I still feel this is better than failing someone who has had a problem if they can master the pool and tests for the first three moduals + the 2 O/W dives.
.

I was like everyone else when Scuba Diver Certification first came out, but now I use it like you have mentioned... it is like a "certified resort diver" and as long as you concill them properly and they realise that they must dive under supervision, I think is solves a lot of the valid complaints such as Mikes regarding certification and divers ability.

Usually, when I council them they express horror at the thought of diving without supervision... which is good.

Mark, this sentence got me to wondering, What do you think is too short/ too easy and what constitutes a course that is too long/too hard?.

simple:

Too short, is not safe
Too long, the course is time based not ability based.. time has nothing to do with ability, so talking about how long a course should take is just silly. Every student is different, therefore they should be able to learn at thier own pace, which makes every course different.

This is why, here, every course works out as a semi private course.

I doubt that this would work in landlocked areas. It might work well in resort areas, but here I just don't see anyone paying a DM or instructor to dive with them.

I dont see why not, this idea would mesh perfectly with LDS dive clubs..
.
QUOTE=FatCat] I move like an arthritic snail. .[/QUOTE]

which of their bones do gastropods get arthritis in??

Just a general observation:

I started out - like most instructors, I think - teaching classes with the q-cards (slates, cheat sheets, whatever) in hand and by having my students go through skill after skill, followed by 10 to 20 minutes of "tour".

Now I've incorporated most of the skills into the actual dive. .

nowhere on the slates does it state: "kneel on bottom and perform skills for the first 20 minutes"

I like your idea though, I wish more people would incorperate skills into the dive, I am sure that a lot of Mikes objections would be resolved if more instructors did this.

It also works for you cold water guys where 20 minutes of kneeling chills a student diver so much that they lose focus and want to shorten the dive.. swim around a bit, do a skill, swim some more..keep warm.

 

[Hank49]

They improve little with time because they haven't been given the basics on which to improve...which is why so many of the instructors (especially the ones who have only been diving for 6 months and only have recreational training) suck in the water..

I've seen it stated on this board that "a lot of instructors don't have good diving skills". I find this surprising. The year I did my IDC I also witnessed two others and in my opinion, all the candidates had good skills. We all had to demonstrate, and teach buoyancy by hovering Buddha style in 8 or 60 feet depth with no up or down movement. We were all living there on the island and diving every day, working with each other, so how could you NOT develop good skills? The candidates who failed the IE, unbelieveably, usually failed the Standards and Procedures exam...the open book test.
I guess it must be different if you do the whole OW thru IDC in quarries. ??

 

[MikeFerrara]

nowhere on the slates does it state: "kneel on bottom and perform skills for the first 20 minutes"

Nowhere does it say not to and lots of instructors are taught to teach that way. That's pretty much the way it's done in the IE too.

I like your idea though, I wish more people would incorperate skills into the dive, I am sure that a lot of Mikes objections would be resolved if more instructors did this.

Absolutely. I think having students actually dive while their learning to dive is a fantastic idea.

 

[Hank49]

Absolutely. I think having students actually dive while their learning to dive is a fantastic idea.

I guess this is the main difference between quarry training and warm, clear, sandy beach gently sloping to 15 feet or so depth. After doing skills we always took the students on little tours to the small coral heads etc and they had to get buoyancy wired. I guess that's hard going off a platform in green, deep water.