Redesigning AOW

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High level instructors often do more than lower levels, and if you have a small class there is often more time to add skills that are beneficial but not required. I had the good fortune of doing my AOW one on one with an Asst Course Director. We did much more than is required and I got a lot out of the course as a result.

A few things seem to be discussed consistently, and I'm going to consolidate them in a list:

OW II could have the following Pre-Requirements:

OW Certification
20 logged dives below 10m including:
5 dives > 20m
4 EAN Dives
3 specialties:
Peak Performance Buoyancy (2 Dives)
Underwater Navigation (2 Dives)
Nitrox (class time only)

Course additions/changes:
Limit of 4 or 6 divers per instructor
Exercise all 5 ascent types
Drop Weights and CESA
Buoyancy adjustment in mid-water (instructor hands you a 4-6 lb weight and you have to adjust quickly)
Perform removal of BCD and alternate air ascent
Exercise 4 Kick Styles (Dolphin, Frog Forward, Frog Back, Flutter)
Underwater communication (more signs and practical testing)
How tank size affects dive time - practical use... 60cl, 80cl and doubles.
Using different Gear
Backplate and Fins
Integrated BCD
Pony bottle
Solid fins
Split Fins
Integrated Octopus/BCD fill valve
DIN & flange style 1st stage

Let's put together a set of changes and present them to PADI. If we do a good job, they will consider the recommendations.

Cheers,
D
 
I got my AOW one year after my OW... my rationale was that more diving was what provided the experience necessary to "advance" my diving skills, and 5 dives just wasn't enough.

There's an old saying... "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."
 
Dshonbrun has a point above. I also dislike the term "Advanced." Why not "OW II" instead?

And I also worry not just for the diver who thinks the term AOW means they are advanced, I worry about operators who use that as a discriminator. I understand that you've got to try to use something that doesn't require divers to provide detailed CV's, but simply showing up with a card shouldn't be that much of a lock. I've seen instructors that have had significant problems with many of the requirements taught in the AOW and related specialties.

I required the instructors I certified to teach a specialty to show me that they could do ALL of the required skills before signing them off. More than one instructor has surfaced in the middle of the lake after failing a nav run. I will leave it to your imagination what some of the search/recovery and use of a safety reel have ended up like.

I used the opportunity to bring them a up to speed both in terms of doing the skills and how to convey that information to a student.

And as someone noted above, I also start with buoyancy. I then use the subsequent dives to reinforce that. Then Navigation, using subsequent dives, and the night dive prepares the student for the aspect of diving deep in a lake. Finally I use the search/recovery to bring much of the skills together. But many of my students have noted the Pre- and Post-dive talks have been a significant portion of the learning process.

I have seen too many instructors that do the minimum. If you're teaching with that mindset, I think you're wasting everyone's time. The shop often thought I was spending too much time with my students, but I never wanted a student to leave without understanding all that they could in the process.

Anyway, that's my input, FWIW.
 
First off, I'd have most if not all of the dives be required, rather than the "subject tasting" structure of the existing (at least PADI) class.
PADI AOW actually used to be like this. When I did it in 1990, there were no options. It was:
Natural Nav
Compass Nav
Limited Viz/Night (we actually did a dusk to dark, then night. 'Course everything here is limited viz :( )
Search & Salvage
Deep

so not as much breath as choices you might want in it now, and I don't even know what was available for specialties at the time? But between all the nav and search stuff you certainly got a good background in finding your way around.
 
I would just drop the class. It's more of a marketing tool than training. It falls in the with the meet people, do things and go places catagory. I suppose, in this regard, it can be a fun "sampler" of some different dive activities. That, in itself, isn't bad but the course results in a certification. That certification is often used to decide how deep or where, one will be allowed to dive. It's obsurd that it should be a prerequisite to any other training. This is where it gets over the top ridiculous.

If I were going to design a curriculum to take a diver from entry level to super diver, there would be no AOW course. If I wanted a sales tool "a sampler" to let folks try a few different things and see what they liked, I might design something similar in concept to "Advanced Oped Water" but it would not result in a certification. You want to document a sampler dive and give credit for it later? Great, but no course of training has been completed yet and there is no need for a certification.

IMO, the concept is too flawed to fix. You need a different concept.
 
Most of y'all have probably already read about the AOW class I teach. Obviously I redesigned it because I didn't think the NAUI class offered enough "meat" to help my students progress to self-sufficiency in typical local conditions.

My AOW course starts with three evenings of classwork. During the first two sessions we cover basic skills ... dive planning, gas management, buddy skills, buoyancy control and navigation techniques. The third evening is dedicated to discussing night/limited vis, deep, and S&R dives.

The in-water part requires at least six dives ... each dive is designed to focus on specific skills, with a progression toward task-loading. I teach all skills while hovering ... some in mid-water where there is no possibility of even seeing the bottom, much less touching it. We deploy SMBs, conduct blue-water ascents with stops, calculate predicted gas consumption based on a dive plan, work on buoyancy, trim, and finning techniques, navigate using both compass and "mental mapping" techniques, and conduct S&Rs using reels and lift-bags.

My favorite dive is a mid-water navigation dive. The entire dive is conducted at 20 feet ... which for the most part means they're too far off the bottom for any kind of visual reference. One diver gets the compass, the other gets the depth gauge and bottom timer. Their task is to work together to navigate a timed course and end up back at the buoy line where they started. Obviously they have to work together ... reinforcing the notion that dive buddies are supposed to do more than simply be in the water together. It's a difficult dive (many DM's I know can't do it) because it requires awareness, buoyancy control, and teamwork. Although it's a nav dive, the actual navigation is the least of it.

Any dive that doesn't meet my satisfaction is done again ... I've done as many as 14 dives with students before they pass. I've yet to fail anyone from this class ... but I have told several people they weren't ready to take it ... and I've had many people decide not to once they found out what it involved.

And I can honestly state that I've never had a student complain that they didn't get anything out of the class.

A fellow NAUI instructor ... and ScubaBoard member (BDub) ... teaches a very similar class. He and I co-developed the material we both use to teach it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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Well, If I were to teach an AOW course I would do it from the get go. Meaning that I would combine the OW and AOW courses into a single course and single price structure, but you just get two cards at the end of the course. It would probably follow the same structure as TSandM's and Gratefuldivers course for the AOW portion, but it would allow me to utilize more classroom and confined water time for AOW as well. The check out dives would either be three dives a day over three days or five dives a weekend over two weekends. To me this would allow me more time with the students both in a classroom environment and in an open water portion to help instill good diving habits into the students.
 
If I were making the rules to obtain an AOW cert, the first prerequisite would be to complete at least 50 ocean dives

Doing a lot of my dives here in the Great Lakes area, I take exception with your specification of "Ocean Dives". I have now close to 200 dives logged, and only 8 have been in the Ocean--4 from my OW Cert in Hawaii, and 4 from a weekend trip to NC earlier this year. I'm heading up to Nanaimo in a month. Those dives wouldn't even count toward your AOW :)
 
Doing a lot of my dives here in the Great Lakes area, I take exception with your specification of "Ocean Dives". I have now close to 200 dives logged, and only 8 have been in the Ocean--4 from my OW Cert in Hawaii, and 4 from a weekend trip to NC earlier this year. I'm heading up to Nanaimo in a month. Those dives wouldn't even count toward your AOW :)

Yep,

I've logged 62 'salt' water dives, out of nearly 300 dives.... Out of those "ocean" dives only my dive in the Puget Sound would come close to being as challenging as our local fresh water dives as the rest of my "ocean dives" have been in Turks and Caicos and Cozumel.
 
here is my .02 as a newer diver there should be different certifications like OW SOW (standard open water ) and AOW the SOW would be what AOW is now and AOW would be for truly advanced
 

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