Master.........Really?

[boulderjohn]

If I am in an overhead (Yes still open water) or deep environment, buddy breathing is superior to a CESA if their second does not work. Try getting out of the back ballroom in Ginnie after exhaling and then finding the octo (alt) reg is not working.....

This illustrates one of the considerations for curriculum design. In planning the OW curriculum we do not consider getting the new OW student out of a cavern or cave at Ginnie Springs. They are not supposed to be in there without proper advanced training. It is similar to the curriculum decision not to include calculus in Algebra I. It can wait for a later, more advanced course that most students will never need to take.

 

[JamesBon92007]

You can't be serious. Obviously, you've never been on a dive charter. There is no way they're going to let you dive down to get your equipment. You know, liability and all that. Unless you are an experienced free diver I doubt you can get down to typical shallow depths (30 feet) and get your equipment on. I can't. Nope, let the DM go down and get it. That's part of the cost as far as I'm concerned.

Of course I was not serious. It was the only scenario I could think of where a diver might need to dive down put on all of his gear at the bottom of the body of water. Bad joke, I guess.

Having said that, I don't think it's a useless exercise. For me it was an exercise in being familiar with your gear, making choices underwater, working underwater, and basically forcing you to think. And yes, I'm perfectly capable of diving down to 30 feet and putting on all of my gear. But I was a fee diver before I used scuba. When I took a second scuba course in 1983 (with my X) the instructor told us to dive down and come up with a handful of sand. We were wearing only 1/4" (7mm) wetsuits and mask, fins, and snorkel. No weight belts. There were three of us, not including the instructor. We all came up with a handful of sand and the depth was about 30-35 feet. We were divided into small groups but I suspect that everyone in the class could do the same thing.

 

[packrat12]

This illustrates one of the considerations for curriculum design. In planning the OW curriculum we do not consider getting the new OW student out of a cavern or cave at Ginnie Springs. They are not supposed to be in there without proper advanced training. It is similar to the curriculum decision not to include calculus in Algebra I. It can wait for a later, more advanced course that most students will never need to take.

So the advanced student then gets buddy breathing training (satirical)??? Same issue, no change is buddy breathing skill set...

BTW, this is considered an open water dive by Ginnie. Deep diving applies in this scenario also, but not at Ginnie.

"Ginnie cavern is among the handful of sites that experts consider sufficiently safe to allow exploration by divers who lack formal cavern or cave diver training." - From Ginnie Springs site

 

[TMHeimer]

The diving down and putting gear on I find interesting. I did this once in a pool while getting help from an instructor at another shop, to finish the DM course at my shop. I found this to be one of the easiest things I've ever done. I think this has to be with being a water person (with 150+ dives though) to begin with. Seems logical you go for the reg. mouthpiece first to get air then figure the rest out any way you want. Now, I don't know if I could go down 30' and do it. I imagine so--if I could clearly see where the gear was from the surface (not likely here). Having to swim down 30' and look for it without a mask would be a major problem, as I am not a great breath holder.

 

[JamesBon92007]

That's the thing about the exercise, you have to decide what to do first. If wearing a thick wetsuit then the weight belt might be the first choice, if only to wrap it around your ankle. Also, the air was not turned on during the exercise so that would preclude breathing from the regulator.

Gee, it might be fun to have a Master Diver competition! Kinda like a Triathlon or obstacle course but where the diver has to accomplish a myriad of tasks including donning your gear, rescuing a distressed diver, shooting a moving target with a speargun (no scuba for this one), navigate using only a compass and depth gauge, raising a 100 pound object from the bottom, make an entry/exit through heavy surf, dive to 300 feet in icy water, make a decompression dive without getting the bends, locate a missing object that fell off of a boat, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

I've read some references as to how many dives it takes to become a Master Diver (or whatever) and numbers like 50-100 seem to be what I recall. Personally I don't know if such a thing exists which is the premise of this thread. Someone with thousands of hours underwater has not necessarily done everything there is that can be done. Someone who took a lot of specialty courses may have done many different tasks within 100 hours but lacks long-term experience.

 

[ScubaJill]

http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/effectiveness-online-response-meta-analysis.pdf

https://www.dol.gov/odep/documents/SoftSkillsMastery.pdf

Boulderjohn - here are 2 studies to contradict you. Also my FAA Certified Flight Instructor certificate and renewals indicates opposition to the comment "I can assure you that the very worst way to have people learn content is through instructor lecture". Blended is the best way to instruct. Since I renewed my CFI in October, the FAA still has not changed that. Nor do these studies. Online can be useful but you also need face time.

First of all, nothing Boulderjohn wrote led me to believe that he was advocating for online-only scuba training. I understood him to say that certain information is best conveyed in some form other than lecture:

...I can assure you that the very worst way to have people learn content is through instructor lecture. Both the process of having students read the materials in a book and then go over it with an instructor and the online options impart that information much more effectively than do lectures.

Besides, Packrat, the findings put forth by Columbia University's Teacher's College are much more nuanced than you are suggesting. The report you provided a link to was in response to a meta-analysis conducted by the Department of Education. I haven't read that DoEd report, but based on my experience as a social scientist who researches and evaluates government programs, including training and education programs, I imagine that the study team reviewed studies, evaluations, and other literature on the effectiveness of college-level online courses. That available literature suggests that, in many cases, college students learn more in online courses than in face-to-face settings. According to TC, the literature available on fully online, semester-length college courses does not fully support this finding. I didn't look to see how "fully online" is defined, though I would think it involves no in-person contact with the instructor or instructor's assistants.

Secondly, the Department of Labor report is about imparting job relevant soft skills (e.g., interviewing, team work, communication, etc.) to youth and incorporating technology into the training curriculum for better outcomes, rather than relying on face-to-face training alone.

So, you offered two reports that concern non-conclusive student outcomes in semester-length fully online courses for college students and increasing the success of teaching soft skills to high school and college students through the inclusion of technology in the curriculum. I could be wrong, but I believe you're cherry-picking studies that appear in the top 5 search results on Google to support your argument. An argument, it appears to me, that is based on your misunderstanding Boulderjohn's posts. By the way, your actions only reinforce your criticism of online-only training:

Pop onto the internet to get a quick answer with no understanding.

Anyway, I don't believe there is a "best" way to do anything. There is current wisdom about what is "best," and then that changes as better evidence becomes available and a new "best" is defined. In general, though, in developing and delivering any training curricula, you will need to determine the audience, the information needs, the expected outcomes, and the resources available. I imagine the development of the curriculum for the FAA's Certified Flight Instructor certificate program went through this same process. What does that curriculum look like? Online modules, some in-class time, and then taking a plane out to show you know how to fly it?

 

[Shotmaster]

One of the most important things that a course of instruction does, is impart lasting knowledge. The method is immaterial if it achieves that goal. With that said, in my opinion diving instruction needs a mix of theory (the science of diving, and the physics), practical exercises until verifiable proficiency is attained, dive planning exercises, demonstrated confidence in the water, and successful open water dives from shore, boat, and jetty, with day and night dives. Of course creating an independent diver will allow them to go diving on their own and they won't need to have someone hold their hand on every dive. I have met plenty of people who have never been on a dive that wasn't a handholding exercise. Someone is creating this mentality in their students.

 

[KeithG]

This thread has now become more interesting due to my last dive trip (1 week T&C liveaboard). There was a young ambitious couple (60 dives ish) that where eagerly pursuing all sorts of advanced training courses.

On the second day he engaged me in conversation in order to seek some out personal advice since I (and my dive buddy) were obviously so much better skilled than the rest of the boat. We must be highly trained.

Sorry. We are just PADI OW. We had less FORMAL training than anyone else on the boat. We were perceived as the highest skilled, but in reality we had the least amount of formal training.

P.S. A few nights later we were the only buddy team to surface upstream of the moored boat when a slight current kicked up mid dive during the night dive. Half way into the dive I was going "WTF are they going?" and slowly dragged my dive buddy into the current. We spent 10 minutes on the dive deck after our dive watching the flotilla of dive lights bobbing about on the surface waiting for the moored boat to swing close enough for them to get back to the boat. it would have only been 5 minutes if they had started to swim sooner. About 300 feet.

 

[boulderjohn]

So the advanced student then gets buddy breathing training (satirical)??? Same issue, no change is buddy breathing skill set...

Actually, no, the advanced student dealing with caverns, caves, and wrecks does not get the buddy breathing training. Buddy breathing is not taught in any of those courses by any agency I know. It it not deemed to be appropriate, and other, more effective means are taught instead.

BTW, this is considered an open water dive by Ginnie. Deep diving applies in this scenario also, but not at Ginnie.

"Ginnie cavern is among the handful of sites that experts consider sufficiently safe to allow exploration by divers who lack formal cavern or cave diver training." - From Ginnie Springs site

You don't quite have it right. You used some of the correct words, but you changed the meaning.

The Ginnie Springs statement says that the site is appropriate for people who do not have formal cavern or cave training. In other words, an open water diver can go into the cavern there under their rules. That does not make it an open water site. It is still an overhead environment and not open water. Saying a cavern is an open water site is because open water divers are allowed to enter it is like saying Canada is actually Germany because Germans are allowed to visit there.

If you do not understand, I suggest you take the PADI approved course "Understanding Overhead Environments." This course will take you through the different kinds of overhead environments and explain why different ones demand different levels of training and experience. This specific environment (where I did my Cavern certification, BTW) might be appropriate for some OW divers, but certainly not all, and divers need to learn to make a good judgment as to whether it is appropriate for them. You may have trouble finding someone to teach the course, since it is a distinctive specialty that can only be taught by instructors who are qualified and who submit the appropriate paperwork. They would have to get the paperwork from the course author, and I did not send it to all that many people.

 

[Diving Dubai]

@boulderjohn @packrat12

I just want to explore course teaching. I'm not calling either one of you out as you both have way more experience than I. But I do wish to put a personal perspective on it.

I can just about remember my OW in 2007 and as far as I can recall there was a lot of class room time. Having just completed my rescue with my wife, we felt uncomfortable with teh new format (if indeed it is new) of self study and knowledge reviews. We would have preferred say half a day to discuss teh subjects. So not a full instruction in every chapter but more than self study.

I should say that we're both 50, so our style of learning might be different than a 20 year old.

I should also admit that despite our uneasyness about our knowledge retention we both got 100% on the version A exam. Because my wife and I are somewhat competitive the instructor for a laugh gave us the Version B ( to decide the winner) and we both maxed that too.

So by the results you could say the self study is an acceptable method. however we both felt we revised just for the exam rather than fully understanding the whole subject in depth.


All that aside. From a commercial standpoint I see the dilemma.
The course (whatever agency) has to be seen as affordable and value for money by the student? Simple market forces? I'm presuming that the course fee is split into a fee for the certifying agency, a sales fee for the LDS and a fee for the instructor?

So if you make the course longer you either need to increase the cost or someone has to receive a lesser fee for selling, certifying or teaching the course?

So I guess in the market place someone has to balance how much needs to be taught, over what time and at what price point.

Given a choice of a cheap short course over a more expensive longer course the majority of candidates would take the former because they don't know what they don't know?