What training agency

[Thalassamania]

one little difference between the two agencys,
padi - the student must perform the skill
NAUI - the student must be "proficient" in doing the skill
then again a lot is up to the certifying instructor regardless of agency

And there are different skills to be performed.

 

[oahu_diver]

one little difference between the two agencys,
padi - the student must perform the skill
NAUI - the student must be "proficient" in doing the skill
then again a lot is up to the certifying instructor regardless of agency

PADI: The student must MASTER the skill...not just perform it.

But I agree...it is up to the individual instructor whether the student has mastered the skill or is proficient in the skill. Does NAUI provide a definition or guideline as to what it means to be "proficient?" PADI does provide a definition/guideline for mastery of a skill.

 

[Thalassamania]

But you use PADI's own private definition of "master," which is somewhat less than what I'd call "perform."

 

[oahu_diver]

What do you mean by private?

And how would you describe "mastering a skill" as being somewhat less than performing it? I can perform a skill without mastering it...but I can't master a skill without performing it. Can you please elaborate on what you meant?

 

[Thalassamania]

Go read PADI standards, I can't be expected to spoon feed you everything. But then compare the private PADI definition to that used in most any dictionary. What you will find is that if PADI students (or any agency students for that matter, or most instructors, or most ITs, or most CDs) were held to what the word "mastery" actualy means, they'd never be certified.

 

[oahu_diver]

You don't have to spoon feed me a thing. I thought we were having a professional discussion about scuba training. But I see that's not possible. For some reason you seem to be completely against recreational scuba training. I'm gonna guess that at some point you were denied entry to PADI's CD course or denied some kind of training that you wanted. But that's cool. I've been talking to a lot people about recreational and scientific diving and I'm happy that I have not found one person that agrees with the opinions you have stated during this discussion.

I won't take up anymore of your time.

 

[Thalassamania]

You don't have to spoon feed me a thing. I thought we were having a professional discussion about scuba training. But I see that's not possible. For some reason you seem to be completely against recreational scuba training. I'm gonna guess that at some point you were denied entry to PADI's CD course or denied some kind of training that you wanted. But that's cool. I've been talking to a lot people about recreational and scientific diving and I'm happy that I have not found one person that agrees with the opinions you have stated during this discussion.

I won't take up anymore of your time.

I appreciate your willingness to stop wasting bandwidth and my time.

As far as your guesses are concerned, they seem to be based solely on your interpretation of your own motivations and say more about your level of knowledge and circle of friends than they do about reality.

Reference to some unidentified group of people with whom you discuss the origins of AAUS, our intent when we wrote the manual(s) or the meaning of PADI Standards absent actually reading them, is somewhat less than persuasive; especially since you I did not see you sitting at the table (do you even know what table we were sitting at? In whose office?) with us.

Since you seem to lack the acumen or energy, I'll spoon feed you one last time:

PADI Standards say:

"mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of an open water diver."


Merriam - Webster advises:

1: a : the authority of a master : dominion b : the upper hand in a contest or competition : superiority, ascendancy

2: a : possession or display of great skill or technique b : skill or knowledge that makes one master of a subject : command


Do those appear congruent, or even just intersecting to anyone?

 

[oahu_diver]

I appreciate your willingness to stop wasting bandwidth and my time.

I see that you do not wish to extend the same courtesy.

As far as your guesses are concerned, they seem to be based solely on your interpretation of your own motivations and say more about your level of knowledge and circle of friends than they do about reality.

Thanks for proving that you are clueless to my motivations and level of knowledge. As for my circle, it includes many PADI instructors, NAUI instructors and DSOs. Most agree that you have perverted the issue.

Reference to some unidentified group of people with whom you discuss the origins of AAUS, our intent when we wrote the manual(s) or the meaning of PADI Standards absent actually reading them, is somewhat less than persuasive; especially since you I did not see you sitting at the table (do you even know what table we were sitting at? In whose office?) with us.

Since you seem to lack the acumen or energy, I'll spoon feed you one last time:

PADI Standards say:

"mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of an open water diver."


Merriam - Webster advises:

1: a : the authority of a master : dominion b : the upper hand in a contest or competition : superiority, ascendancy

2: a : possession or display of great skill or technique b : skill or knowledge that makes one master of a subject : command


Do those appear congruent, or even just intersecting to anyone?

Yes, Webster's definition #2 is related to the intent of the PADI standard. You may want to get an updated PADI manual. The definition is slightly different, but that's ok, the intent is the same. But if you're gonna prove a point, at least have current information.

I have read PADI, NAUI, AAUS and OSHA standards...and the beauty of it is that someone can be a scientific diver without AAUS.

I assume that this will continue because you feel the need to get the last word in. So, you can respond to this if you wish. But this will be my last post. Unlike you, I do not spend my life in front of Scuba Board (evidenced by your quick replies). I have to go diving now. Enjoy your day.

 

[Thalassamania]

Thanks for proving that you are clueless to my motivations and level of knowledge. As for my circle, it includes many PADI instructors, NAUI instructors and DSOs. Most agree that you have perverted the issue.

There are many problems with your construct, first, let's excuse all those recreational instructors from the discussion, since they have neither specific knowledge, nor a dog in the fight, so to speak. Then let's ask how many DSOs you have polled and inquire as to if any of them were anywhere founding members of AAUS, or even know, on a personal level any of the founders? What particular expertise does this galaxy of DSOs whom you hobnob with bring to the discussion?

Then we can consider the fact that it is quite impossible to "pervert" an issue at it's origin, you can only "pervert" an issue somewhat downstream. What you are doing could be likened (solely as a clarifying example), to accusing one of the founders and authors of the Constitution of "perverting" the Constitution because what he says that he wrote stands in opposition to some disparate view that you hold ... now that is truly bizarre, as in:

"Mr. Madison, I support something, and you claim that the Constitution that you wrote does not. That must be because your opinion is a perversion of what you wrote."

​

How strange, how bizarrely egotistical your construct appears. Now, you might find other founders of AAUS that disagree with me (though I rather doubt that. Try: Somers, Austin, Stewart, Flahan, Egstrom, Duffy, Richardson, Mitchell, Heinmiller, Bell, Griffin, etc.) or you might point to where there has been some clear change in policy or approach, but to claim that am perverting the view that I expressed and intended to express during my participation in the preparation of the original AAUS manual, is the height of hubris.

So ... yes I admit that I am clueless as to your motivations, you blew an opportunity to learn what actually happened, from someone who was there and who helped make it happen. Instead, you'd rather try to self-promote yourself by "taking me on." It's reminiscent of the story of the ant crawling up the ass of an elephant with rape on it's mind. That's a fool's path and you're welcome to it.

Yes, Webster's definition #2 is related to the intent of the PADI standard. You may want to get an updated PADI manual. The definition is slightly different, but that's ok, the intent is the same. But if you're gonna prove a point, at least have current information.

I am not a PADI Instructor so I do not attempt to stay up on PADI standards at a level of detail required for more that chatting here. For the private PADI definition of "mastery" I was relying on PADI Instructors on SCUBA board, to wit:

Quote:
... The last time I looked at the instructor's manual it stated:

"During the Confined Water Dives, mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of an Open Water Diver."

and

"A Teaching status PADI Instructor must conduct the final evaluation to verify that students have mastered each skill (with the exception of skin diving skills that may be evaluated by a qualified PADI certified assistant.)"

See Page 2-2; Open Water Diver Course Instructor Guide; Metric/Imperial Version; 1999 Edition; Including all Training Bulletins through First Quarter 2007 ...

and

While I don't see what your question has to do with the discussion or the portion of my post that you quoted, I will answer it anyway...

I interpret Mastery using the definition provided in my agency's standards:

"mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of an open water diver.

A student to manages to [sic] meet the stated performance requirements in such a way that it raises a question as to whether the student could reliably perform the skill for multiple repetitions has not met the definition of mastery." ...

and

...
The second part of that, is "Mastery". Each skill in the course must be mastered. Again, using PADI as my model, they define this as fluid, repeatable and error-free. ...

and

From the IDC Student Manual:
...

Master means to become proficient. PADI's performance based training requires student divers to not only demonstrate skills but be proficient at performing them. Student divers must completely understand the information presented, not just have a passing knowledge of the course content.

Skills -- Mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner.

...

and

From the PADI Manual

"During confined and open water dives, mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance requirements in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of a diver at that certification level."...

and I could go on, ad infinitum.

I have read PADI, NAUI, AAUS and OSHA standards...and the beauty of it is that someone can be a scientific diver without AAUS.

Reading is not the issue, though thoroughness of research, reading comprehension, thoughtful analysis, and scholarly attitudes in general, on the other hand, may be lacking.

You repeatedly demonstrate that you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Let's look at just one example of what you said here and see just how wrong and misinformed it it:

According to one of ScubaBoard's most respected PADI experts, BoulderJohn (whom I oft disagree with, yet never-the-less who enjoys both my admiration and respect), PADI's use of the term "mastery" was not, at all, in the sense that you see it (e.g., Webster #2) a definition that would likely even deprive even as talented a diver as you are, of openwater certification, but rather was being used by PADI in an educational jargon sense (you'd know all this if you'd done a rather simple search of ScubaBoard. That's a good lesson for you to do your homework and never bring a knife to a gunfight). Anyway, I'll spoon-feed you one more time, here's two comments by BoulderJohn on the subject of PADI "master":

... schools can manipulate time more than you might think. Mastery Learning is a concept that allows for this manipulation. There is a saying among advocates of mastery learning that we used to make time the standard and learning the variable, but now we make learning the standard and time the variable.

In the U.S., current state laws are usually contradictory about this, and this is, I believe, one of the biggest problems we face in education today. Schools are not supposed to graduate students until they have demonstrated mastery of standards (mastery learning), but they are penalized if they do not graduate a specific percentage on time, exactly four years after enrolling as freshman. In the long run, the penalty for failing to graduate the students is greater than the penalty for not educating them, so....

By the way, that is how almost all dive instruction is done today. The term mastery is standard in such systems, and PADI's use of it is correct because it is using it in its educational context. Using the term in its non-educational definition is not appropriate.

and

If you read through my columns (link below in my signature), you will get a pretty good sense. You may also want to check out the guidelines for science classes that I co-wrote. It will take a long time to explain everything. The best I can do is little more than a list topics. These are off the top of my head, and I will probably think of more after I post it.

1. The primary one is enforced mastery learning, which is essentially what is done in scuba instruction. A student keeps at it until a standard is reached, with the length of time required for it unimportant. That is pretty much the opposite of what happens in school.

2. Related to that is standards-based or criterion-based assigning of grades. This (coupled with the first one above) is almost certainly the key reason for sky-rocketing student achievement, but when I was asked to implement a writing program in one of the top technical colleges in America, I was told I could not do it that way, because it violated school rules and would lead to students doing too well! (If students learn too much and their grades accurately reflect that learning, then schools are accused of grade inflation. It is thus important to discourage high levels of student learning so that a decent number will do poorly and enhance the school's image of having high standards.)

2. Constructivist learning design.

3. Project-based learning/authentic assessment.

4. Collaborative learning. (Perhaps the most controversial. I dismissed it myself when I first tried it and hated it. Then I learned that I was doing it wrong. When it is done incorrectly, it is a terrible system that is harmful to education. When done correctly, it is an excellent system that leads to greatly increased learning.)

5. Individualized instruction. The teacher must believe that every single student can have genuine academic success given the right conditions and the right instructional approach. The teacher goes after failing students with that belief, adjusting instructional approaches to meet student needs. That belief continues even when the teacher is unsuccessful with individual students.

6. High expectations for all. You do not help students by lowering standards to meet their current levels of performance. You help students by raising their performance to meet high standards.

7. Rubrics to guide student learning.

8. Success breeds success. Bring students to early success to instill a sense of confidence. Build on that success through...

9. Scaffolding. Proper lesson sequencing leads students from one successful learning experience to another, each one building on the one before. Each new task puts a transfer load on a student. If the transfer load is too small, the student is bored and learns nothing. If it is too great, the student will fail at the new task. A scuba example: partial mask flood-->full mask flood-->no mask breathing-->mask removal and replacement-->no mask swim and replacement.

10. Understanding by design (Title copyrighted by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigue). Many lessons are not aligned, that is, there is a disconnect among the purpose of instruction, the assessment of learning, and the instruction itself. A proper curricular design begins with a clear understanding of what the student needs to know and is followed by the design of an assessment that will actually require that the student demonstrate success on those skills and understandings. (Many assessments have nothing to do with such actual success.) Once those two items are in place, instruction is designed to make sure student meet success. Most instruction is designed in exactly the opposite way.

In a nutshell, John is saying that all PADI students "master" the skills as a result of being retained in class until such a time as the are able to perform them, "in a reasonably comfortable, fluid, repeatable manner as would be expected of an Open Water Diver." while I maintain that PADI chose to use the word "master" or "mastery" in a cynical display of Orwellian "newspeak" for the purpose of legal liability and advertising bumph.

I assume that this will continue because you feel the need to get the last word in. So, you can respond to this if you wish. But this will be my last post. Unlike you, I do not spend my life in front of Scuba Board (evidenced by your quick replies). I have to go diving now. Enjoy your day.

As you see I have responded, but not out of some misguided need to have the last word, just out of a desire that people not be misinformed. If you remember the laws or learning, "recency" is important. And as to your ad hominum logical fallacy there are three things I would like to say, the first is that I could afford to take many days, yea, many weeks, months, or even years, off and I doubt that you'd come close to catching up. The second is that yes, I spent all of yesterday and will spend most of today sitting here at my computer writing a panegyric for Bill Hamilton, the diving physiologist and a dear friend who died Friday, and whose funeral is today in Tarrytown, N.Y. This has been a diversion for me during that painful yet elational process, so I do need to thank you for that. The third is that unlike you, I never HAVE to go diving anymore, now I go when I whenever I want to.

 

[santy2506]

holy crap man...as a new DSO, I was hoping to follow this conversation a little longer. But reading your last post was like watching Mike Tyson step inside for the kill. I don't know if we'll hear from that guy again.