What is the classroom training like these days ?

[Jack_Sparrow]

I was certified a few decades ago when things were much different. There was no option for online learning from which I understand is quite popular these days.

My child is going to be getting their OW this winter while on a tropical vacation. I opted for the live classroom training vs the online learning. I realize that PADI structures their classes for uniformity and consistency in the results. My question is how much of the classroom these days is actually taught and how much are videos that are going to be watched ? Is my kid going to be put in a classroom and set infront of a monitor or is there going to be actually teaching going on ? How much classroom time is there and how much reading outside of the class is going to be required ? They do still have books these days don't they

 

[boulderjohn]

PADI offers many resources to instructors to use in the classroom. These are optional. I doubt there is anyone who uses them all, and most people I know use only a few, preferring to rely primarily on their own teaching skills. That is because most of those resources would really be overkill, taking a long and thoroughly unnecessary time to teach things students had already learned without difficulty. It is therefore impossible to know exactly what your child's class will look like.

No matter what the instructor plans to do, the expectation is that your child will walk into the classroom having read the materials, viewed the videos, and completed the knowledge reviews. The instructor's job is to clarify learning, check for understanding, and add relevant information. The instructor's job is NOT to teach the material in the first place. Learning at home on your own time and then having the instructor help out with understanding has been shown to be far more efficient in learning than having the instructor deliver new learning via lecture. If your child walks in without having done the work and expecting the instructor to teach from scratch, that will not work at all; I would refuse to do it.

If you are doing the computer version of the course rather than the tables, I strongly urge you to spend a lot of time with the computer simulator. It will really help learning how a computer guides you through decompression.

 

[Jack_Sparrow]

PADI offers many resources to instructors to use in the classroom. These are optional. I doubt there is anyone who uses them all, and most people I know use only a few, preferring to rely primarily on their own teaching skills. That is because most of those resources would really be overkill, taking a long and thoroughly unnecessary time to teach things students had already learned without difficulty. It is therefore impossible to know exactly what your child's class will look like.

No matter what the instructor plans to do, the expectation is that your child will walk into the classroom having read the materials, viewed the videos, and completed the knowledge reviews. The instructor's job is to clarify learning, check for understanding, and add relevant information. The instructor's job is NOT to teach the material in the first place. Learning at home on your own time and then having the instructor help out with understanding has been shown to be far more efficient in learning than having the instructor deliver new learning via lecture. If your child walks in without having done the work and expecting the instructor to teach from scratch, that will not work at all; I would refuse to do it.

If you are doing the computer version of the course rather than the tables, I strongly urge you to spend a lot of time with the computer simulator. It will really help learning how a computer guides you through decompression.

 

[Jack_Sparrow]

I am glad that the instructor will resort to his teaching abilities. This is much more personalized than watching general videos.

How will she have access to the materials prior to class if she is taking the course while on holiday in another country? I really want this to be a great experience for her and not to be rushed trying to read an entire book while also doing the pool/ow exercises. If I sign her up for the class does she get an e-book or is this only if you sign up for the e-learning? This is a 5* padi dive shop that has many locations in this country but I am having trouble finding the details to these questions. It really seems that most take the e-learning portion at home but it adds quite a bit to the cost to take it prior.

 

[boulderjohn]

If she wants to take the course while on holiday in another country, then I strongly recommend that she do the academic and pool work at home before she leaves. She can sign up at a local shop and do all of that part of her training on her own schedule. The shop will then give her a referral that will be accepted at her vacation location. She will only have to do the final checkout dives there, and those dives will be very similar to what she would have done if she were already certified. She will not spend a lot of vacation time studying. In my area (Colorado), we do not have good local diving, and roughly 80% of our students do it that way.

In contrast, I did all my certification on vacation a couple decades ago, and it was a mistake. As you noted, people on vacation do not want to spend a lot of time in the classroom, and the vacation dive shops know that. Vacation diving instruction is often done very quickly for that reason. In my case, they limited the classroom and especially the pool sessions by skipping requirements. I did not realize it until years later when I learned what I was supposed to have been taught and wasn't.

 

[Fossil_Diver]

I heard they strap you in a chair and clamp your eyelids open then they force you watch instructional videos while listening to classical music.

 

[Jack_Sparrow]

I heard they strap you in a chair and clamp your eyelids open then they force you watch instructional videos while listening to classical music.

Clockwork orange style , I like it !

 

[Jack_Sparrow]

In contrast, I did all my certification on vacation a couple decades ago, and it was a mistake. As you noted, people on vacation do not want to spend a lot of time in the classroom, and the vacation dive shops know that. Vacation diving instruction is often done very quickly for that reason. In my case, they limited the classroom and especially the pool sessions by skipping requirements. I did not realize it until years later when I learned what I was supposed to have been taught and wasn't.

She has done a few resort dives already and has the basic concepts down. That is a good point that you mention about the streamlined learning that will be done. With my experience and training as a DM I feel that I can fill in any blanks that the resort leaves out. I learned to dive in the murky cold waters of the midwest and have logged most of my dives in the cold. Also have some experience diving caverns/wrecks. Resort diving and cold water diving aren't even close to comparison. Many people that do referrals and then feel that their OW cert means they can dive are mistaken. Certified and proficient are 2 different levels

 

[Sevenrider860]

As John has pointed out, instructors are provided many options on how they teach the knowledge development. How they assess knowledge development is standardized. It is assumed there has been some self study and review of the videos prior the the class. If you show up for a resort course and obtain your Open Water Diver Manual at that time, then get ready to read and watch some videos also. I have seen resort courses run as video, read, knowledge review, quiz, review missed answers...repeat. This method gets boring very quickly when in a tropical destination when everybody else is enjoying the sun and water.

Most people don't want to spend time on their tropical vacation doing the knowledge development component of the course and they don't need to. The PADI eLearning options are very good...this allows the student to start the confined water skills the first day after a quick knowledge assessment. As John mentioned, another very popular option is using a local dive shop to complete the knowledge development and confined water skills and provide a referral for the OW dives. This allows the student to spend time in the water diving rather than in a classroom. Most people I talk to find this to be the most enjoyable method of getting certified while taking a vacation in the tropics.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @Jack_Sparrow

I have some perspective on this issue.

I was initially certified in 1970 by LA County. Lots of classroom time, no videos, no PowerPoint slides, but, a lot of good, basic teaching. Extensive pool time and 6 OW dives, including 4 shore dives off the beaches of LA County. There have been many discussions of "training in the old days" here on SB. My first certification course was very good and I was fully prepared to dive in my local conditions, which I did actively for 10 years.

Skip ahead 17 years. My son had just turned 12 and wanted to get certified. I decided to get recertified and we decided to do the classroom and pool locally in the Philadelphia area and then do our checkout dives on Grand Cayman, where we had a timeshare and visited frequently. We has a very good PADI affiliated shop nearby and started our course. Unfortunately, we were involved in an auto accident returning home one evening after class and were unable to finish prior to our trip to Grand Cayman. Rather than pass up the opportunity for my son to get certified, we decided to take the entire course with the operator on Grand Cayman who we were going to do our checkout dives with, also a PADI affiliate. Turned out to be a very good course. We did our reading and knowledge reviews before class, only my son and me with our instructor, as much classroom time as we wanted, arranged on a flexible schedule to allow family activities. Four boat dives over two days where we demonstrated our skills and also had some time to enjoy a little diving. We finished the vacation by getting in a good number of additional dives. More than 1250 dives later, I would still describe this as a very good certification course. My son became, and is, a very good diver. So....the key is choosing a good instructor, teaching a good course, that's probably the hard part for most aspiring divers.

I have no doubt that doing much of the classroom component by eLearning can be perfectly adequate. You still need a good instructor to follow up the academic content and to execute the pool training and OW dives. I would imagine doing the OW dive by referral can work just fine, simply adds another person and variable to the learning equation.

Best of luck and good diving. Diving with my wife and children is one of my greatest pleasures,

Craig