Redesigning AOW

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When I went through my aow my instructors told the class 'advanced' was a misnomer. The purpose of the course was to enhance our o/w course which we had recently completed and to give us the opportunity to conduct additional dives with our instructor.

Today I operate under a similar phylosophy. I add buoyancy (using some of my fundies training) as a required dive and the last dive for the students is a dive in which they must plan and conduct on their own. I want them to get away of being dependent upon someone else.

Having said that I think some of the comments from Al Mialkosvy & 8thelementdiver are very true.

C
 
I'm a fan of spreading out the class to take more than 1 weekend. AFIAK, doing it all in 1 weekend is not required, but that seems to be the most common offering around here.

Two agencies already do this, kind of. With SSI and SDI you need 4 specialties and 24 (or 25?) dives to get an AOW. The specialties are taught on their own (from what I've seen) so you're likely to dive over the course of 4 weekends to get it all done. I'm not a fan of some things that SSI does, but in this case I think they represent an improvement over some other agencies. The 2 dive requirement also means that you can't do OW 1 weekend, AOW the next, and walk onto a AOW charter having never been in the water without an instructor.

My experience is that the time in between topics give a diver the chance to think about what they learned both in the text and from the dives before moving on to the next topic. Trying to cram everything into 1 weekend encourages the opposite.
Extra time also lets instructors add more information (or spend more time on review) as they se fit.

There is no need to dive with the same 'class' for the 4 specialties, so the student gets to dive with a wider group of people along the way.

The SSI/SDI plan is far from perfect, but I think it's an improvement over the 1 weekend AOW wonder classes.

Rich
 
I guess they are trying to capitalize on the post OW excitement. I know that I was ready to get my AOW the week after I got OW, but I couldn't afford it. If they made the class to extensive or made it last over the course of a few weeks then people might not jump on it right away. It is a shame to think it could just be about the money.
 
If I were making the rules to obtain an AOW cert, the first prerequisite would be to complete at least 50 ocean dives which would include 10% of dives over 100 feet, at least 20 CESA'a from various depths, 10 air-share ascents from various depths, 10 night dives and a decent navigational, solo dive and rescue course. Then the AOW might mean something to the diver rather thatn a cash cow for the certifying agencies and the LDS's. Gas planning might be another good one. Buoyancy should come about with experience so I don't see a need for that. This crap about fish identification, photography, etc. is so much fluff.




, 10 hours of navigation with a compass,
 
One thing that you have not explicitly included is computer use. Many (I suspect most) of us who are novices buy or rent a computer and dive with no real idea of how to use it. One of the optional dives for AOW is multilevel with the wheel. Pretty much outmoded by the computer now. Personally, I'd very much like to have had specific instruction in computer use as part of AOW, probably before, during and after a pair of dives, the first being a deep dive, incorporated into a dive planning module.

There really are a lot of things that could be covered and 5 dives is obviouslly not enough to do them all. One tactic might be to prohibit AOW until 25?-50? dives have been completed, then design the course according to the stated needs of the customer who would pick from a variety of smaller topics (modules) many of you have suggested.
 
It seems as though it's a pretty common thing, to see people criticizing their AOW class as not providing very much actual learning. I know I felt that way, and most recently, Thrillhouse had the same reaction. Peter and I were discussing that thread, and we got to talking about how we would do an AOW class, if we were to design one. I thought I'd throw our ideas out and see what other people have to say about how they would do it.

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. Now, the required dives might vary with area, but the material of the five dives would be set by the instructor, appropriate for that area. (For example, night diving would be required for the PNW, because many of even our daytime dives in summer are dark enough to be effectively night diving, because of the light absorption by the surface algae layer.)

Second, one of the required dives would be a skills dive, where the divers practiced such things as clearing a flooded mask, recovering a regulator, and sharing air WHILE DIVING. This dive could be done in shallow, sheltered water, but would include such things as actually carrying out an air-sharing ascent under control. The reason for this dive, in my opinion, is that it would make the deep dive safer if the divers had ready responses for the biggest problems that they would be likely to encounter on that dive -- things like freeflows, or running out of gas.

Peak performance buoyancy would be a required dive, and the goal of it would be not only to get the diver properly weighted, but to get them into something approaching a stable horizontal position in the water.

Peter thinks the deep dive should be included, to give the divers an opportunity to experience narcosis under supervision. But it should include some basic information on gas management (eg. rock bottom and an introduction to SAC rates).

Both of us agree that a dive to practice navigational skills should be included. Unless you do nothing but dive off boats with a guide, you are going to have to do some navigating. How that dive would be structured would obviously depend on where you are, but it should definitely include some compass work, and if possible, some natural navigation as well, even if it's just getting the divers to tell you what KINDS of landmarks or features they would look for to orient themselves (wave lines in sand, etc.)

The last dive could be region-specific. For example, in the PNW, a dry suit dive might be a reasonable one to include. For places where most diving is done off boats, a boat dive (to include such things as the use of emergency signaling devices, and gas planning for a mandatory return to the up line) might be more useful.

It seems to me that such a class, if it included the kinds of information I listed, would be good value for money, and still an appropriate class for someone with a very small number of dives.

Thoughts?

The air sharing ascent (octopus ascent) was required during my NAUI OW checkout dives as was bringing a diver up by the BC from about 20 feet.
 
OW does not make you a competant diver, so why should AOW make you a competant advanced diver? I think they are supposed to give you some basic info to go dive and practice until you are competant in the two areas.

Our LDS did AOW over 2 weekends, and we did navigation, deep, altitude (our local lake is 2000ft), and peak buoyancy.
 
I would call the course OWII which is what AOW is anyway. I would have the lecture time used for gas management, dive site planning, basic deco just so students know what is going on during all dives. In other words explain what is behind the rules so that students can use their brains rather than just follow rules. This would prevent someone who inadvertently incurred a few minutes of deco from thinking that they had to race up to 20 fsw immediately.

I would have the 4 dives be actual fun dives where skills are incorporated into the dive. A night dive would be somewhere there is something interesting to see at night. A deep dive would be held where there is something interesting at depth. Navigation would be done on all dives and would be practical rather than timing kick cycles and swimming in a square. Peak buoyancy and non-silting kicks, trim would be monitored with feedback on all dives. Buddy skills would be discussed and monitored with feedback on all dives.

The overall logic of what to cover in this class would be prioritizing what the next most important subject for a newer diver should be. Search and recovery,fish ID, and most of the other specialities wouldn't make the list for this course nor would doing dives just to be doing dives such as going deep, turning around and calling it a deep dive.
 
These are all very good ideas for AOW. The problem that I have with AOW is that you can start training at 12 OW dives (not get your cert, but begin the training, for SSI I think the cert comes after 24 dives). I was no where near experienced at 12 dives to do a night dive/ lim viz dive, nav, deep, or a perfect bouyency dive.

I was lucky though. I found a few buddies that mentored me along the way. They taught me night/lim viz, nav, deep and proper weighting/trim for bouyency, long before I did my AOW. Needless to say, AOW was a breeze (IMO I was a better diver than some of the DiveCon candidates during my AOW dives).

Just to toot my own horn, when I gas planned my deep, I came up within 25psi of what I had planned the dive for :14:

The only thing that I'm missing out of your list is drysuit, and I'd love to do that, I just don't have the 2 grand to buy one right now :(
 
Chemistry II is pretty much like Chemistry I but organic chemistry is a whole other animal, an advanced diver certification should be the same. The biggest problem that I see is that the current AOW doesn't follow the standards you would expect if you took five specialties individually. If PADI would change the AOW name and reserve the advanced level of certification for students who went through the full specialty courses along with the Rescue Diver class, then the advanced card would mean more. Make the current AOW course OWII for those who want to fast track to Master Diver. For those on the Divemaster track, require them to take the full specialty courses. Better trained DM's and more money for PADI.

My LDS's website saysthat the AOW class is what they would like to teach all OW students but don't have the time. As a follow up course to OW, its a bargain for students to get the extra dives with an instructor. Our AOW cost a whopping $125. Not much you can expect from a hour talk on theory and another hour for the dive per specialty. A lot depends on the instructor and his/her commitment to their students.

On a side note, for the peak performance buoyancy class, I would hold it in the pool and video the student to show them just what they look like. Then the student will have a much better understanding of the problems they need to address.
 
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