What makes an instructor or class excellent?

[boulderjohn]

How do you get them from where they are to mastery? Is it just straight repetition with feedback?

I think a lot of the skill in instructing comes to play in this, and experience plays a part.

1. You begin with a good briefing on the skill. Over the years I learned what the most common problems are likely to be with each skill, and I tried to head them off in the briefing.

2. When an experienced instructor watches a student struggle, the instructor can immediately see why the student is struggling and can then provide the appropriate help.

My very first scuba experience was a Discover Scuba in a pool, and I had no trouble clearing my mask from the start. Thus, when I became an instructor and saw students struggle, I had to puzzle out the issues they were having. Eventually I saw every possible mistake and finally came to an understanding of what had really come naturally to me. After that, I was able to give a far better briefing and demonstration, and my students almost always did it well the first time. If they had trouble, I was able to see why and correct it easily.

You can also head off problems before you teach the first skill. Many students have problems because they feel like they have to act too quickly on a skill. This is especially true of any skill that requires taking out the regulator. At the very beginning, before they do the first skill, I would do a demonstration in which I would lie on my side facing them, my elbow on the floor, my head supported by my hand, in the attitude of bored leisure. I would take my regulator out, showing that the mouthpiece was pointing down, and set it on the floor. I would point to the tiny stream of bubble coming from my mouth. I would then continue the bored leisure pose, drumming my fingers on the floor, glancing at my watch. Then I would put the regulator back, purge, and go on breathing. That demo had a HUGE impact on the students and their skill performances that followed.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I can't comment from an instructors point if view because I'm not an instructor, but I can comment from a students point of view.

I really helps if the instructor is a good speaker with fluid sentences and keeps the "ands", "ums", "like" and "you know" to a minimum or works to eliminate them all together. It's very distracting and pretty soon that all people can focus on.

The instruction needs to be nurturing and not a "prove yourself, do or die" approach. This isn't military BUD's training. I had an absolute hard ass Instructor helper with a chip on her shoulder and had a big hard on for men. She was another instructor helping the instructor that I was supposed to be doing DM with. She did everything to try and make sure I was miserable, lots of hazing. I put up with it best I could without lashing out. She was a teacher at the high school where we were doing OW classes in their pool. She was also an Army drill sergeant on reserve.
That was her style; to break people.
So totally non productive.
I'll admit that I'm not the best swimmer in the world and needed work on technique to do the 400. But I am comfortable in the water, just not a good lap swimmer. I also didn't pass the gear exchange in the first go around because of the way things went.
Anyway, never completed DM because the instructor moved away and left me in limbo. My folder was incomplete and half the stuff was
lost or missing so I would have had to start over.
I got busy and never pursued DM again.
The moral of that story, be nice!

The other thing that makes for good instruction is to make sure everyone completes the skills that are outlined. An instructor that lets stuff slide doesn't do anybody any favors. From what I saw, students that have a hard time with a mask R&R need to really focus in it and make sure they have it down. That one skill will either send divers in panic or they can handle it. A good instructor will make sure students are fluid in that exercise.

 

[boulderjohn]

The instruction needs to be nurturing and not a "prove yourself, do or die" approach. This isn't military BUD's training. I had an absolute hard ass Instructor helper with a chip on her shoulder and had a big hard on for men. She was another instructor helping the instructor that I was supposed to be doing DM with. She did everything to try and make sure I was miserable, lots of hazing. I put up with it best I could without lashing out. She was a teacher at the high school where we were doing OW classes in their pool. She was also an Army drill sergeant on reserve.
That was her style; to break people.
So totally non productive.

This was apparently commonplace in the early days of instruction, when many instructors had learned originally in the military. The History of NAUI tells about first meeting of independent instructors in Houston in 1960, the meeting that led to the formation of NAUI. The NAUI founders were surprised to see harassment being done by some of the instructors in the pool sessions. They believed it had no benefit for the student and was primarily done for the amusement of the instructors.

It is pretty rare now. Having seen threads like this for more then two decades on ScubaBoard, it is the lack of this sort of boot-camp mentality that many people mean when they lament the "watering down" of scuba instruction.

I was once assigned an unusual student. She had originally gone through the confined water sessions with the person who was now our shop manager. She had done very well, but she had moved away before completing the class. She started over again in her new home area with an instructor who was very much of the drill sergeant type. The instructor harassed, humiliated, and berated the student until she quit. I was assigned to teach her in a private class, and it was like dealing with a broken person. She ended up doing great, but it took TLC to get her over the fears that the other instructor had forces upon her.

 

[therookie]

Adapts to needs of whom they are teaching

All of the above posts are so excellent, and from my own personal experience (as a dive student) I want to emphasize this one. With a particular focus on "needs" in the sense of "limitations".

My mother was also a professional educator, specializing in students in the classroom system with "special needs" - those outside the "normal" range of student ability handled in most classrooms. In other words, those who had moderate to severe learning challenges, and also the other end of the spectrum - the extremely gifted who have their own unique challenges with the "standard" school system.
She was, in my undoubtedly biased opinion, a "great instructor". She couldn't have specialized to the degree that she did without being one. So I feel that I know "great" instructors when I see them as a student, and do my best to search them out for my own educational needs.

I suffer from profound hearing loss. As in, without hearing aids that are expensive enough that two top-end Shearwater AI computers would cost me less, I am very close to functionally Deaf. If you are ever on a dive boat around Roatan and after the DM's briefing an "older diver" extends it by explaining that his hearing issues are such that you can bang your tank underwater all day along and he won't hear it so if you need to get his attention either shine your torch in his face or swim up and bang him on the back of the head, you have probably met me. I say it with as much humour as I can, but if someone in the group has an issue with it I need to know it (and so do they!)

Of course, this created challenges for my OW and AOW instructors. And I specifically asked their honest opinion if my physical condition precluded diving (really don't see it on the PADI medical forms, and I now know for a certainty there are certified Deaf divers but I didn't know it then) and they assured me that it didn't - with the caveat that the "right" thing to do is make sure the people you are diving with are aware of what they are getting themselves into. Advice that I have taken very close to heart, hence the "extended" dive briefings.

They both went above and beyond, making absolutely certain that I heard and understood what they said. Easy enough topside with my hearing aids, not so much when we are in the water. Of course no instructor is "perfect", and both fell short in some ways when compared to the high standards mentioned above. But overall, on balance, both are "great" instructors.

 

[The Chairman]

How do you get them from where they are to mastery?

Set the example. Classes should be follow the leader with direction. Monkey see, monkey do. So many instructors set horrible examples: lying or kneeling on the bottom, doing the Zen Buddha pose, swatting invisible flies, and worse. When they look like you, you've done your job.

When they look like you, you've done your job.

Set a great example, because they want to dive just like you do!​

 

[The Chairman]

I really helps if the instructor is a good speaker

Is it? Sure, there's a bit of pre-dive info to give, like signals, a bit on fluid dynamics, and vector propulsion. But, once I'm in the water, I only speak if they don't "get" something. If a picture is worth a thousand words, shoeing them how is worth a billion. Demonstrate the skill as you would do it normally, slow that down emphasizing the key skills, and then let them try. Repeat as necessary. The less you talk, the less you will bore your students. Keep it clippy: don't waste their time!

Someone said "adapt to the student" and that's so, so true. Figure out how they learn and modify.

 

[sea_ledford]

swatting invisible flies,

lol

Totally stealing that.

 

[DreadnoughtNH]

Adapts to needs of whom they are teaching

THIS.

I'm not a scuba instructor, but I used to train customer admins how to use specific automated measurement equipment in manufacturing facilities. Now I train the trainers. I like to tell new instructors "for each component skill you are teaching, you need to be able to deliver the same kernel of information in at least 3 different ways to the trainee."

Some students like a highly technical delivery of the information. Some need repetitive demonstration of skill. Some need visual aids or mental devices.

An instructor who can recognize the needs of the student and adapt their training specifically to that student is not just a good instructor, they are a teacher.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Is it? Sure, there's a bit of pre-dive info to give, like signals, a bit on fluid dynamics, and vector propulsion. But, once I'm in the water, I only speak if they don't "get" something. If a picture is worth a thousand words, shoeing them how is worth a billion. Demonstrate the skill as you would do it normally, slow that down emphasizing the key skills, and then let them try. Repeat as necessary. The less you talk, the less you will bore your students. Keep it clippy: don't waste their time!

Someone said "adapt to the student" and that's so, so true. Figure out how they learn and modify.

Well yeah, that too.
I was referring to the classroom part, but I guess that is mostly gone now with elearning so probably a moot point.