Instructor Seeks Feedback

[bubblzmaker]

Dear Diver Buddies-

I'm an instructor with several years of teaching experience, and I've decided to take some time to re-think my teaching approach. I have listened carefully to the feedback from my students, and I would like to hear from the students of other instructors as well. Please take a moment to consider what made your experience with an instructor or dive professional stand out- for better or worse. I welcome specific examples (such as a dive pro bringing bottles of hot water to pour down your wetsuit during November check out dives in New England) or just overall explanations of why they were terrific/terrible. No names, please, we don't want to bash anyone, we just want to learn from examples. Your contribution here will make the experience of new students that much better! Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[AndyNZ]

Something we do for our O/W students is make sure that if possible they all stay over on the Saturday night of the open water weekend and do something as a group - normally, if I'm DM I offer to cook a 3 course meal whilst the instructor logs dives etc. They get a good feed for $15 each and they get to find and make friends a bit more with the other students, so they can keep in touch for the future, come along to dive club nights with someone else in the same boat and also have some contacts to go diving with in the future.

It's not really an "instuctional issue", but it adds to their experience and (being totally immodest but who cares!) the course feedback for the courses where I do this is usually very, very complimentary.

I also make sure that all of our students get the chance to jump in the pool for a try dive prior to the start of the course so they don't get intimidated if the instructor chooses to jump straight into skills rather than having a bit of fun at the beginning of the first pool session.

Hope this helps.

 

[Diesel298]

Ive seen alot of places turning out divers like a assambly line...
money in one hand c card in the other..
this methood is not creating good divers, and not giving people the confidence, or a good experence..
so if you can stay dedicated to creating a good experence for divers.... i think thats the biggest thing.
also. alot of places focus on only a few areas of the sport..
one shop might permote alot of trips to warm water destinations, but not really focus on all the NE diving offers.. of some will actually discourage there students aganst tech diving... because they dont know what there doin so why expand....
i think if you can offer ALL the oprutinites that NE diving allows. as well as organize trps.. both locally , and not.
hope this is some help

Ray

 

[Diesel298]

Something we do for our O/W students is make sure that if possible they all stay over on the Saturday night of the open water weekend and do something as a group - normally, if I'm DM I offer to cook a 3 course meal whilst the instructor logs dives etc. They get a good feed for $15 each and they get to find and make friends a bit more with the other students, so they can keep in touch for the future, come along to dive club nights with someone else in the same boat and also have some contacts to go diving with in the future.

It's not really an "instuctional issue", but it adds to their experience and (being totally immodest but who cares!) the course feedback for the courses where I do this is usually very, very complimentary.

I also make sure that all of our students get the chance to jump in the pool for a try dive prior to the start of the course so they don't get intimidated if the instructor chooses to jump straight into skills rather than having a bit of fun at the beginning of the first pool session.

Hope this helps.

I think thats great.
your maximizing the experence.
thats why we do this. to have a good time.. its suposed to be fun...
shops that have clubs or do outings....
not everyone is into that but those who arent can stay home.

i dont work in a shop but am in a simmilar position where making the coustomers experence as good as i can
that little extra alot of time goes a long way

 

[joe rock]

Dear Diver Buddies-

...Please take a moment to consider what made your experience with an instructor or dive professional stand out- for better or worse. I welcome specific examples (such as a dive pro bringing bottles of hot water to pour down your wetsuit during November check out dives in New England) or just overall explanations of why they were terrific/terrible. No names, please, we don't want to bash anyone, we just want to learn from examples. Your contribution here will make the experience of new students that much better! Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I had two excellent experiences with different instructors from the same LDS for OW & AOW. Some things that made it a great experience:

1. They were patient and helpful, didn't try and push anyone until they were comfortable with each skill.
2. They didn't down play concerns with an obligatory "everybody feels that way". I felt they took the time to LISTEN to my concerns and work through them with genuine care for me. A great example was my "deep" dive in AOW (obviously by my info. you can see I took AOW early in my dive career). I was going through a tank of air pretty quick and I was concerned about a potential OOA situation at 90' (my normal beathing plus anxiety plus depth, etc). I voiced that concern to my instructor and he made sure I was comfortable. Any time I wanted to turn back - no problem. He checked on my air often. Modified the dive plan to make sure I'd have plenty of air. Soon I stopped worrying about my air consumption and focused on the tasks at hand.
3. They kept a small student-to-instructor ratio. We had instructors and dive masters in training to help us. No more than 2 students per senior diver. While two were doing skills with the instuctor, others had someone with them. I watched a class right next to us that had to have 10 or 12 students with 1 instructor. I watched underwater as students got in trouble and had no help or started to run low on air because things took so long. That instructor's solution was to dive with small groups, leaving the others topside for long periods of idle time.

Now I dive with these guys and have a great time, hang out at the LDS and give the owner my business on equipment.

 

[markfm]

I like to bring snacks to dives (doesn't matter if it's a course or just me diving )
A dozen doughnuts when people get out of the water helps get some quick energy. Likewise a couple of thermoses of hot coffee goes over well.
(Hydration is good, drinking a lot of water, but if you're freezing the jewels off doing OW certs, relatively little actual underwater time, and shallow to boot, the coffee works well.)

 

[AndyNZ]

I think thats great.
your maximizing the experence.

Totally. All of the instructors I work with are very capable instructors..... some have more "charisma" and "joy d'vie" than others and it tends to be those that get students coming back for more...

Something I did a few years ago to get over my fear of public speaking was an improvisation course run by the local comedy club, I found it a really useful way of learning to think on my feet, come up with the right comments at the right time etc. It might be of some use to instructors looking to develop more of a distinctive personality etc. (bubblzmaker - not saying that this is your situation!!).

The other thing I make sure I do is that if a student had a problem, say with some gear or had an issue during a training session - I always call the student before the next session and let them know that the gear has been fixed, or that the pool has been cleaned or whatever.

I don't think that it's the cake that students remember, just the icing.

 

[creamofwheat]

I just finished my OW, and my instructor was awesome. We only had a class of 4 people, so it was just him and us, and it was nice to have that small class. But that's besides the point. We all did perfectly fine in our pool sessions, but when it came to the OW dives and I had to remove my mask, I started panicking. (Had no problems in the pool...I'm guessing it was just the whole being in the ocean thing). Anyway, he tapped me on the shoulder, tgave the hand signal to not do it, to relax...and we all continued swimming. We surfaced a bit later...and he took me down by myself to remove my mask, told me to take all the time I needed, etc. This was exactly what I needed, and I eprformed the task just fine. But I really appreciated the little bit of extra time he spent with me so I could get the task right. I think this is a really important quality.

Also, that sleepover/dinner thing sounds like it would be a blast! What a great way to end the course.

 

[wunat]

I am currently getting certified as a DM so I had chances to work with many instructors on my internship. As a DM trainee, I personally appreciate those instructors who believe in coaching us while some actually see our assistant as an additional burden. Some wants to simply focus on the new divers while some spend some valuable time with us after various tasks on debriefing us what we done well and what we could improve on.

I do understand the fact that when we are around assisting them (confine and/or openwater), they have to keep an extra eye on us so they can later evaluate us on our role as a DM. But then coaching us well and us performing well will on one hand increases his/her confidence on us and thus appreciate having us around.

This is a perspective from a DM trainee.

 

[Diesel298]

I like to bring snacks to dives (doesn't matter if it's a course or just me diving )
A dozen doughnuts when people get out of the water helps get some quick energy. Likewise a couple of thermoses of hot coffee goes over well.
(Hydration is good, drinking a lot of water, but if you're freezing the jewels off doing OW certs, relatively little actual underwater time, and shallow to boot, the coffee works well.)

thats one of the thinks we do on the boat.
we have various snacks. hot choclate, coffee, tea.
theres are all small items that take little effort in the grand scheme of things but i like to think it goes along way with the "customer service"