Dive academy tips and tricks

[AlGiordino]

Hey all

I am going to be teaching a PSD/DR1 class coming up, using the DRI curriculum. We will have a class size of around 7 students, with 2 instructors. we will potentially have 2 more adjunct instructors when they can be there and when they are needed for proper student instructor ratios. In the past we have done our academy with several teams together, and many instructors. This year we decided to bring it in house so we can get new divers online before our busy season.

I was wondering if anyone had things that worked well for them when instructing a class like this, things that should be avoided, or other tips and tricks to make this class as successful as it can be.

If you don't teach classes, I'd love to know things about your PSD class that worked well, or you thought could use improvement!

Thanks dudes!

 

[Resqdivemedic]

I have been an ERDI instructor for 5 years and what I found is that the pool session can drag out and become tedious. What I do is after each skills session we play a game or have some kind of competition between squads/teams. It breaks things up and lets the students reset for the next skill. We also train and certify tenders so they have some down time when at the pool. We now have them work on scene sketches including taking measurements of an object in the shallow end and use the triangulation technique to measure and document. For the open water dives we do 5 different scenarios which each diver needs to fill each role for (Primary, Backup, 90%, and Tender). It takes a while but it really allows them to master the skills for each role. Examples are a rescue of a submerged victim, a recovery including underwater body bagging, evidence recovery, problem solving for diver emergencies, and recognition and rescue of an unconscious diver. Each uses a different search pattern so they become familiar with them. We also throw in a final scenario with a bunch of problems that the students need to solve as they go through it. Hope this helps.

 

[AlGiordino]

@Resqdivemedic
Right on man, thanks! I appreciate the help!