Rote Learning vs. Understanding Concepts

[miketsp]

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Has anybody even heard of a gauge sending "shrapnel" in the last 20 years? 30 years?

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"Explode" and "shrapnel" are overstatements. The worst case scenario would really involve the face plate popping off, something that is really a relic of a bygone era of instrument design.
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First off, the whole "exploding SPG" notion is a relic of a bygone era, and a false argument. Has anyone reading this ever ... in, say, the past 20 years ... seen an SPG explode? I know I haven't.
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As far as the SPG example goes, all of my SPGs have a built in failure point in the case should the bourdon (sp?) tube fail to contain the HP. On most of them, it is a small rubber plug in the back of the SPG but on one, the plug is on the top. I have never seen or heard of one failing in that mode. I watch the SPG as I turn on the gas.

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If the comments above are to be believed then I come from a bygone era.:depressed:
I was on a boat a couple of years back when one blew and although it certainly couldn't be described as an explosion it was a good "pop" and the pieces of the plastic (not glass) faceplate came out at enough speed to leave marks in the woodwork. They certainly would have made a mess of someone's face or eye.
After the initial pop the ensuing leak was of course very minor due to the pin-hole limiter in the hose.

As for the safety plug, until recently I had 2 Italian SPGs purchased in 2002, each with over 300 dives and they started giving problems (sticking) within a couple of months of each other. Since I like to know how things work I dismantled both. One did in fact have a corrosion point on the Bourden tube and the other was still pristine inside. However, the point is that neither had any sort of pressure relief plug. Both were solidly constructed, hermetic brass housings and the only place for any Bourden tube leak would be out through a shattered face-plate. And there was no way that the face-plates would just "pop" out. They were held in place by a screw down metal rim overlapping the face-plate by some 4 - 5 mm.

Edit added after discussing pressure relief of Bourden gauges with a maintenance mechanic at the company I work for. Although he wasn't familiar with diving SPGs he does work a lot with industrial gauges.
He told me there is no standard practice. Some manufacturers have no relief mechanism but these generally use safety glass that is supposed to granulate when sujected to an explosive internal pressure. Others have a plug that in fact serves a dual role allowing the gauge to be glycerine filled for use in situations where there is vibration. Others have a "disc" - a stamped weakened area in the metal housing that is supposed to give way when sujected to an explosive internal pressure. And some even have a fancy pressure release valve with a spring loaded mechanism.

 

[Soakedlontra]

Sam -- in my very limited experience, it is probably best to just give the bullet point -- and then later, at an appropriate time get into the "why" of the action. This, btw, is doubly true if the person to whom you are responding just happens to be in a "special relationship" with you (as I suspect is the case here). IF my suspicion is correct, the ONLY proper response is "Yes dear."

I am glad that Sam did not say "Yes Dear" but he kept persevering and explaining why etc. I must have been a bit cranky because of the hassle of dealing with a back that wasn't its normal self...and when I get cranky my attention span drops!

 

[gcbryan]

I'm not a big fan of rote learning. I think it's (almost) always better to explain why. The specific rote response may be forgotten but the overall reason will usually be retained. The correct response can be derived from the explanation.

It's usually better to describe the "big picture" before getting into the minutia.

 

[Thalassamania]

To my why of thinking, the first thing that you need to do when offering advice or information is to know what the hell you're talking about.

The "I wanna see an SPG explode" crowd will have to go back thirty or more years, back to the days of glass faced gauges with no overpressure relief plug. They did explode back then, not often but it did happen, I knew on person who was injured that way.

 

[Mr.X]

Quite an interesting thread. Just stumbled on to it @ the wee hours of the morning.

If I can add anything to this conversation - learning occurs in many ways. Bloom's Taxonomy is a terrific way to start. Bloom's Taxonomy

While it's not truly feasible in a fast-start, fast turnover, product-oriented course (like diving) to give students comprehensive diagnostic assessments...it does behoove the instructor to differentiate learning for their students. This means - accommodate the learning for folks who have different learning styles. NO ONE STYLE OF INSTRUCTION WORKS FOR EVERYONE. This means rote has a place. This means conceptual learning has a place. Experiential learning has its place etc.

That being said, PADI's ed. system with modular courses made me laugh. They're created by instructional designers to cover a wide range of instructor abilities in what is, or was a "stand and deliver" format. What was equally funny was being evaluated by non-educator course directors based on a "stand and deliver" modular format of instruction. Nothing like marketing executives, real estate brokers, boat captains, store owners without a basic ground in the tenets of learning evaluating others using a simple PADI-ape evaluation rubric.

 

[Diver0001]

I understand that the dive education industry puts a premium on getting new divers into the sport at the expense of providing adequate training.

This comes across to me as nothing more than carefully camouflaged cynicism and I'm not even sure you have a point other than telling us that you think you're right about how the evil training agencies are out to get us. This is quite a bit below par, if you ask me.....

Obviously it's always good to question our paradigms and some people (including some instructors) are more willing and/or more able to do that than others. The industry does not mandate that we teach by rote but some instructors just do it. Some probably don't understand it themselves because they've just always done it like that or they look for "one size fits all" protocols for students for expedience sake. Either way it's not the industry that mandates this. It's individual instructors.

You see *exactly* the same thing happen in martial arts training. There are some techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation and are taught without any question of it's utility because people have just always done it like that. Why they have always done it like that, nobody knows.....

But does this mean that expert martial artists don't know what they're doing, or that they can't fight? Maybe a certain amount of just telling people what they should do is natural in every area of learning.....

Reading back, it was your buddy who didn't want an answer to his question. I find it odd that you conclude that this is the industry's fault or the instructor's fault. If your buddy is too lazy to want to become a knowledgable diver than I have another suggestion for who is responsible for that.....

R..

 

[Mr.X]

Interesting perspective Ro. That being said - my PADI crossover was advocating and evaluating candidates on a mostly rote method of lecture-based instruction with little differentiation for instructor candidates with mixed levels of expertise, or learning/teaching styles. In the end the economics of getting through PADI instructor school was all that mattered. So, most were willing to negotiate the constraints of the lecture-based program. For me, I barely made PADI instructorship due to my belligerence regarding canned instruction. Additionally, course trainers without a ground in the tenets of instruction (beyond a bunch of thick and expensive binders) could not (based on their standard rubric) score me as unsatisfactory.

What this is leading to is your perspective regarding martial arts trainers compelling students for complete obedience, or becoming part of "time-honored" methodology, or culture. Does it work? It can. However, if you have any modicum of self-awareness you aren't much in the business of dependent learning...which is why I am fast becoming a fan of MMA.

As for the OP's buddy - sounds lazy as hell, or disguising some learning deficiency with crabbiness masked as "I am too busy." Total BS. No one is too busy to learn the right way.

X

 

[Diver0001]

I'm not sure what you had to do for your cross over but nobody ever told me that I have to do things one certain way without explaining it to them.

Obviously you have to be directive with someone who doesn't know how to do something. If you want to teach a new student how to put a BCD on a tank then you go through it: step 1 do this, step 2 do that... Making sure they repeat the steps more or less the same way each time helps many people remember it better. That's rote learning. Memorization by repetition of the same steps.

Are there some who don't need that? Sure. But nobody and nothing in the standards tells me when I should be directive and when I should let them figure it out for themselves.... I make those decisions myself by looking at students' needs.... In fact, I'm quite happy to let students try things their own way correct it if they screw it up. It helps them understand and remember why there is a right way and a wrong way to do some things...

I agree with you that teaching by rote and NOT explaining the "why" can hinder performance and learning.... but what I'm trying to point out is that that teaching by rote might not be the big evil it was assumed to be by the OP. He's treating learning by rote (repetition, memorization) as being mutually exclusive to understanding the why.... My point here is that they are not mutually exclusive. At some point, every beginner has to be told step by step what to do but nothing or nobody stops you from telling them why! .... It's like that in diving, and it's like that in martial arts and it's like that in a great many other endeavours.

R..

 

[I Dive]

Actually most of the stuff I learned in school was pretty much a waste of time except maybe baseball.

I like it! I may have to steal that one from you!

 

[Mr.X]

I like it! I may have to steal that one from you!

The reason why a lot of folks hated school is because no one took the time to differentiate the instruction for the student. That means - taking the time to know the learner and tailoring the instruction to fit their needs. Heck, teach high school just using athletics? Why not?

It's the economics that do that and at the end of the day you often get disgruntled people who cannot articulate why they hated school other than it was boring. Which sadly, it often is. So, in the US we spend damn tax money to do the same crap classroom instruction over and over again. What's good about scuba is that the learner is typically paying good money for their elective choice. So, there is already an investment in the subject material.

As per the OP learner - crabbiness, or asking to learn in bullet points either indicates laziness, or disguising some type of learning difficulty. I'll preach this till I die - "there is always the time to learn how to do something right."

Additionally Ro - Cheers.

X