Info Why are tables not taught in OW classes anymore?

[Superlyte27]

Same reason why carburators aren’t teached anymore in an era where we are switching from direct injection as part of motor management of an ICEV over HEV’s and PHEV’s to BEV’s and FCEV’s.

The biggest concern here is not the carburators and the diving tables but the people holding on to the past. And to answer that question: people don’t digest change very well. That is the core and the reason why these questions are asked.

Same as one of our older instructor’s reaction to blended learning where diving theory is partially taught with web based training:” Why do we need this? We have been giving classroom teachings like forever and it works fine!”
Yeah ok, but that is not a valid reason why we shouldn’t progress to modern pedagogical techniques. This kind of reactions have the same source: change is difficult to humans.

How dare you interject wisdom and common sense into this thread. Lol

I thought the abacus and slide rule analogy was idiot proof. Lol. I was wrong. See what I did there?

 

[J-Vo]

...it is a good learning process for new divers to understand what a computer does behind the scenes.....

Dragging this out from page two as it's a pet peeve of mine.

If you have a PDC that does the tables behind the scenes, it was made by the worst programmer ever and is a complete piece of crap.

The tables were made by someone typing depth and time into a computer and writing down the output in a chart.

Your PDC is essentially the same computer taking depth and time measurements live during the dive. Your PDC is not "working the tables".

 

[S****N]

Change is not always for the better. Web based learning is useful, but not on the same level as direct personal connection.

Depends strongly of the tutor, the student, the methods and the circumstances.
Advantages of WBT or learning app’s:
-someone who doesn’t handle noise and business from other students very well could be better of with web based training. Think about people with ASD or HS for example.
-differentiation: with a personal trajectory in web based training, everyone can progress at his own pace. Smart ones can progress much faster and aren’t held up by the weakest spot in the chain.
-Time management: People who have a busy life can learn when they have time and not when a classroom course is taking place. People who have plenty of time can learn more and whenever they want to. If I can’t sleep at night I can do a few lessons on my Duolingo e.g.
-no more personal transportation to foresee, no participation in traffic and loss of time in traffic jams.
-less flaws on the instructing/teaching side to handle for students: incompetent teachers, instructors who talk to much about their ego thing, teachers coming too late, instructors who teach old methods because they are not up to date or don’t handle change very well,…
-no strange class group dynamics that keeps people from learning or the teacher from teaching properly
-gamification as a motivator
-…

Carburetors were seldom taught, they were learned from use and from doing.

I’m a teacher in car mechanics. Your statement is incorrect.

Fuel injection is nothing new, it was used in some vehicles and aircraft back in the 1930s.

Don’t turn my words around or leave parts out. I said fuel injection as a part of motor management. Like in with an ECM with is actuators and sensors, that is working together with other modules like an EBCM, BCM,… via a CAN-bus or another variant of a network. This was the only way current emission regulations could be met. Your ‘30’s fuel injection has only one thing in common and that is that the fuel is somehow injected, direct or indirect.

Some changes, like web based instruction, are driven by cost savings, not superiority. They are regressive, not progressive, simply cheaper, and you get what you pay for.

You shouldn’t use oversimplification in discussions. I’m sure you are not doing it on purpose but the way you put it is really very short of how multifaceted the subject of learning something is.

Basic theoretical knowledge of the tables is valuable, not so much because of their possible use but because of the insight and understanding they provide. Smarter is better than dumber.

There are other ways to learn that knowledge and this directly integrated in the theory of DC’s, without referring to 1937 (First Navy tables) stuff.

 

[tursiops]

The tables were made by someone typing depth and time into a computer and writing down the output in a chart.

LOL. The tables were first made long before computers were available.

 

[lowwall]

LOL. The tables were first made long before computers were available.
View attachment 771232

You mean those new-fangled electronic computers, right?

The analog kind has been around for centuries.

Computer (occupation) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[S****N]

Another concern is that change is not necessarily better. Sometime it is change for its own sake...just to be different. Sometimes it is change just to be faddish, not to function better or to be more economical or safer. "Cheaper, Faster, Better" is the mantra, but usually you only get one or maybe two of those.

Oversimplification of a subject that is very complex. If that is the way you see it, than I understand why you draw these conclusions. Read what I wrote one comment higher.

You denigrate the older instructor,

How did I denigrate the older instructor?

but keep in mind that he may have seen lots of changes

I understand that after a while and a certain amount of change, a person is becoming less flexible. But this is not a reason whatsoever to promote a standstill in evolution.

, probably none of which actually made something better, faster, and cheaper; and only a few of which did two of the three. And if the change is not for making something better, faster, cheaper, then it is just change for its own sake...

Again; oversimplification! Teaching and learning is way more complex with a lot of factors in play than how you like to describe it. Read what I wrote above.

I’ll explain one thing that changed a lot in 20-30 years. Psychological science has evolved very strong in the knowledge about developmental disorders like ADHD (concentration and hyperactivity), ADD (concentration), ASD (autism spectrum), …
These disorders existed long before they were properly recognized like they are now. But 50 years ago, a person with one or more of these disorders was just classified as stupid or with behavioral problems. A lot of these so called “stupid” people just couldn’t learn in a classic classroom but were actually not stupid at all. With a personalized learning trajectory based on an LMS (learning management system), some of these people can be helped.

So there you have your better, you described.
Your faster could be no hours in traffic jams and personal trajectories that induce faster evolving for the ones who digest the knowledge better or can put more time in it.
Cheaper: I’m not an accountant, nor a developer but I can imagine that one app can be cheaper than thousands of books and teaching hours in classrooms. Teachers become coaches and help people when they are getting stuck. Less teachers or instructors needed.

 

[agilis]

Depends strongly of the tutor, the student, the methods and the circumstances.
Advantages of WBT or learning app’s:
-someone who doesn’t handle noise and business from other students very well could be better of with web based training. Think about people with ASD or HS for example.
-differentiation: with a personal trajectory in web based training, everyone can progress at his own pace. Smart ones can progress much faster and aren’t held up by the weakest spot in the chain.
-Time management: People who have a busy life can learn when they have time and not when a classroom course is taking place. People who have plenty of time can learn more and whenever they want to. If I can’t sleep at night I can do a few lessons on my Duolingo e.g.
-no more personal transportation to foresee, no participation in traffic and loss of time in traffic jams.
-less flaws on the instructing/teaching side to handle for students: incompetent teachers, instructors who talk to much about their ego thing, teachers coming too late, instructors who teach old methods because they are not up to date or don’t handle change very well,…
-no strange class group dynamics that keeps people from learning or the teacher from teaching properly
-gamification as a motivator
-…

I’m a teacher in car mechanics. Your statement is incorrect.

Don’t turn my words around or leave parts out. I said fuel injection as a part of motor management. Like in with an ECM with is actuators and sensors, that is working together with other modules like an EBCM, BCM,… via a CAN-bus or another variant of a network. This was the only way current emission regulations could be met. Your ‘30’s fuel injection has only one thing in common and that is that the fuel is somehow injected, direct or indirect.

You shouldn’t use oversimplification in discussions. I’m sure you are not doing it on purpose but the way you put it is really very short of how multifaceted the subject of learning something is.

There are other ways to learn that knowledge and this directly integrated in the theory of DC’s, without referring to 1937 (First Navy tables) stuff.

I did write seldom taught (in a classroom setting). I did not write never taught in a classroom.

I'm a retired university faculty member with 40+ years of classroom experience. I know whereof I speak. Learning about the tables is a valuable thing.

Reciting the technology of modern fuel injection obfuscates, it does not clarify. I understand that the fuel injection of 90 years ago was primitive compared to current technology. That's all that you needed to write. The recitation was for argumentative effect.

 

[Bigbella]

The tables were made by someone typing depth and time into a computer and writing down the output in a chart.

J.B.S. Haldane's earliest "staged" decompression models and tables date from 1908, first published in the work, "The Prevention of Compressed Air Illness" and was widely used by the British Navy for the next fifty years.

He often experimented upon goats and even himself to a degree -- a real eccentric, and even a Stalin apologist, to boot.

Just curious to see which H.G. Wells clockwork "difference machine" spat out that one . . .

 

[J-Vo]

LOL. The tables were first made long before computers were available.

Yet calculated the same way computers do now. People speak as if the table "is" the algorithm as if being able to follow a line on a chart is equivalent to being able to calculate and understand a decompression algorithm.

 

[tursiops]

People speak as if the table "is" the algorithm as if being able to follow a line on a chart is equivalent to being able to calculate and understand a decompression algorithm.

No, nobody said that.