Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

[boulderjohn]

Just wondering....did any of the candidates ask beforehand as to the type of assessment you wanted to see ?
Did any ask if they could bring more than one example ?

They were told to bring an assessment that would best represent their teaching style.

The fact that they could not read what we wanted from that alone tells you they are clueless. The assessment told us that their teaching focuses on fact retention and memorization. Anyone with any sense of teaching theory would bring something that assesses higher order thinking skills, because no one in a position of leadership is looking for teachers who focus their instruction on fact retention and memorization.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I'm not a scuba instructor, nor a school teacher but have written and conducted courses for adults. I'm not sure why you think most instructor candidates would crash and burn. I assume we're talking about certified instructors and you're assessing them as employees or contractors for a dive shop.

Because they would likely be placing students on their knees. They wouldn't discuss weight distribution to get students trimmed right off the bat. They wouldn't discuss techniques for getting students comfortable.

It isn't rocket science, but they are typically not taught that in their IDC and not tested for it in their IE.

Hence giving them a second chance on an apprenticeship. Some instructors want to teach the way they learned in their IDC and refuse to pursue improving their teaching ability. Others hunger for it. I want to work with people with a big appetite.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm not a scuba instructor, nor a school teacher but have written and conducted courses for adults. I'm not sure why you think most instructor candidates would crash and burn. I assume we're talking about certified instructors and you're assessing them as employees or contractors for a dive shop.

I'll answer for him--I'm sure he will agree.

Right now there is a major divide among scuba instructors. You have scuba instructors who focus heavily on neutrally buoyant instruction from the start, and that is who I would be looking for. The majority will teach students overweighted and on the knees from the start. Some will have made a conscious decision to do it on the knees, and I would be interested in knowing why. I don't know which is worse, having heard both sides of the issue and made that choice or being so unaware of trends in instruction that they don't even know there is an issue.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I'll answer for him--I'm sure he will agree.

Well yeah! It was your article that was the seed in getting me to stop placing students on their knees.

And what a difference it made immediately.

 

[boulderjohn]

It isn't rocket science, but they are typically not taught that in their IDC and not tested for it in their IE.

It's changing. I refused to teach the DM course at my old shop because the Director of Instruction insisted we teach the DM candidates exactly as he was taught in his IDC, a major program that teaches hordes of instructors. He had the videos, and they were horrible. WIthin a year, that IDC program had totally changed and was teaching all skills neutrally buoyant. I am told that DMs will soon have to demonstrate all skills neutrally buoyant.

 

[boulderjohn]

Hence giving them a second chance on an apprenticeship.

Oh, I would do that with anyone who expressed willingness to learn and who was not beaten out for the job by someone who had already learned it.

 

[Wookie]

They were told to bring an assessment that would best represent their teaching style.

The fact that they could not read what we wanted from that alone tells you they are clueless. The assessment told us that their teaching focuses on fact retention and memorization. Anyone with any sense of teaching theory would bring something that assesses higher order thinking skills, because no one in a position of leadership is looking for teachers who focus their instruction on fact retention and memorization.

Is this still true today? When I ask this question of teachers and really drill down, it’s fact retention and memorization, at least for the public schools.

those good teachers that teach critical thinking? They are off at private schools.

 

[Wookie]

It's changing. I refused to teach the DM course at my old shop because the Director of Instruction insisted we teach the DM candidates exactly as he was taught in his IDC, a major program that teaches hordes of instructors. He had the videos, and they were horrible. WIthin a year, that IDC program had totally changed and was teaching all skills neutrally buoyant. I am told that DMs will soon have to demonstrate all skills neutrally buoyant.

My IE for a RAID crossover was done in a pool, merely a skills assessment. I had to be neutrally buoyant in 8 feet of water and had 1 chance each skill to flub it. So I could break the surface or touch the bottom doing r/r weight belt, but not twice.

 

[boulderjohn]

Is this still true today? When I ask this question of teachers and really drill down, it’s fact retention and memorization, at least for the public schools.

those good teachers that teach critical thinking? They are off at private schools.

Sorry, but the private schools are the worst at this, the ones most likely to focus on fact retention. That is especially true with schools with religious affiliations. When we struggled to get curriculum approved, it was the religious groups who came out fiercely in opposing thinking skills, screaming that we were undermining their parental authority and promoting the questioning of religious beliefs.

Look up state content standards in pretty much any subject and pretty much any state. Look at the verbs that tell what students have to be able to do, and you will not see any that indicate memorization. (When I was the Executive Director of Curriculum for a national company, I had to make sure our classes conformed to state standards.)

There are two problems with it, though.

• When the classroom door is closed, teachers do whatever they damn well please, and teaching fact retention is by far the easiest way to go.
• States strapped for cash have to design state content assessments that do not require a lot of paid human effort, so machine scoring is king, and many of those tests contradict the state standards.

 

[Ayisha]

Sorry, but the private schools are the worst at this, the ones most likely to focus on fact retention.

Not private Montessori schools.

Some of the brightest, most innovative minds were Montessori students: the founders of Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, the designer of the first video game, etc. No rote learning here.

(Your friendly private Montessori school teacher.)