The value is most definitely instructor-dependent.
In my AOW course, at a minimum, we have to complete 5 dives, but I try to get students to do a 25 dive program that takes advantage of more dives for greater training also giving students night, deep, wreck, rescue, and nitrox specialties.
If a student just wants the 5 dive AOW course, I try to maximize the amount of training.
Dive #1 is a skills evaluation dive in which I also try to teach trim, buoyancy, and propulsion techniques such as the frog kick, modified frog kick, modified flutter kick, helicopter turns and backward kicks. Students learn the benefit of diving a Hogarthian/DIR rig and how the long hose works for air-sharing. We also cover buddy-breathing and removal and replacement of the scuba rig while neutral staying off the bottom. If time allows, we'll repeat these exercises in a second dive to further proficiency. We also learn to properly deploy liftbags and DSMB's as a building block for further work in search & recovery.
Dive #2 is a visual navigation dive in which we will practice both pilotage and the use of a primary reel and guideline. I also use this dive to benchmark the student's SAC or RMV rate during normal swimming, while tasked, and while placed in a stress situation. This stress situation is normally a no mask touch contact air share using the guideline. Guidelines are very useful and learning the correct techniques from an instructor with cave training means you can't go wrong. I have students run line keeping their exact depth at 30 feet to reinforce awareness and buoyancy skills. This becomes the building block for being aware of MOD during nitrox diving. The no mask air-sharing skill is simply a confidence booster. We again practice deploying a bag or DSMB. Team, trim, and propulsion are improved.
Dive #3 is a navigation dive in which we will work on improving navigation skills. I've discovered that compass work is often rushed in too many AOW programs trying to teach a student to do complex patterns when students can't swim a straight line with precision. We increase the precision as we site see finding smaller targets over greater distances until the student can swim a course from mooring line to mooring line in blue water maintaining depth and direction on his or her own. At the same time, we learn better buddy team skills, propulsion and awareness. Again, more DSMB practice.
Dive #4 is a deep dive combined with search and recovery. On this dive, we descend to 100 feet and the student will navigate a series of waypoints taking us to different sunken attractions. At some point during the dive, I will ask the student, Question. Where is ... (some object)? We'll run a search pattern corresponding to the size of the object and the bottom features and bring the object up while controlling the object and running a series of pretend decompression stops since it is required in PDIC AOW standards. Team, buoyancy, trim and propulsion is improved.
Dive #5 is a night dive. When possible, I try to add the element of limited visibility to the night dive as well. We learn to perform a night dive from a cave diver's point of view relative to light communication, team light referencing and light failures. Team, buoyancy, propulsion and other skills from the class become part of the challenge of the dive culminating with an out of air ascent and a swimming safety stop while air-sharing and navigating in mid-water at night back to a return point. Proper gas management for deeper recreational diving and planning is stressed.
The technical training and experience I've had allows me to take advanced recreational training to a higher level and I draw on those strengths to deliver more bang for the buck. When considering an AOW course, ask yourself what your goals are for the course, the environments in which you will be diving, how aggressive or tame you want the course to be, and what approach you think you'd want your instructor to take. Then, find the instructor who will best cater to your needs.
While the above course is the way I usually go to promote local diving, continued specialty training that will allow me to increase the level of difficulty, or foster an interest in technical diving, I've also modified the way I teach to meet the needs of students. I've had what I call "Ken & Barbie" divers who only want to dive in warm water on vacation in AOW courses and I've scaled the course back a bit to work on the skills that will help them get a greater level of enjoyment from their diving. I've also gone the other way and had students tell me to take the gloves off and throw all I can at them in a 25 dive program with lots of task-loading.
Independent instructors often make the best AOW instructors because the class is often a labor of love rather than just another revenue-generator. Taking private AOW classes is another way to go. You and your instructor can work together with a class customized especially for you. I'm not saying that all dive center sponsored AOW courses lack quality and value. Not all indie instructors are good either. The more personalized the attention, the greater the training of your instructor, and the more you are willing to do for class the value can become priceless.
