One Day Pool Session

A local PADI shop has both two day pool sessions and one day pool sessions. Both sessions go over the skills and all the students can perform the skills. Both types of classes have the standard two day, four dive checkout that the students demonstrate the skills.

Have anyone else heard of a PADI shop holding a one day class? Should I be cautious if I have an opportunity to dive with one of these certified divers?

Haven't heard of it. I'm unclear--All the 20 skills are done in one day? Really small classes? Seems like an awful long time in the pool and an awful lot to process in a day. Is there a one day classroom session to go along with it? I assume it goes along with the e-learning route?

I think about 8 - 10 students. One instructor and a few divemasters/divemaster candidates. I think the classroom part is just going over the knowledge reviews as the students do a homestudy. Classroom 1.5 - 2 hours in the morning and then in the pool from about 10 - 5 or 6.

Whether it is popular on SB or not, IMHO the most popular beginning certification courses with customers are the cheapest courses. Here in Hawaii, and in many other similar locations from what I've seen, heard and read, the cheapest courses are typically 3-day courses. Many of the 3-day courses will spend 10-ish hours the first day; morning Academics, afternoon Confined Water.

This is not only the predominant class that tourists sign up for. AFAIS, locals also mostly go this route; 3 Sundays, 3 Saturdays, Sat-Sun-Sat or a Holiday 3-day weekend. The last option is tougher in places like Maui where many Beach Parks are off limits to commercial operators on Holidays.

There are more than one agency that this can be done through, but the details here are what I have seen shops/resorts/independents do for PADI OW. This has been going on for at least a decade, probably a couple, so e-learning really has nothing to do with it.

Students with good snorkeling experience, good physical shape and endurance, who have completely read the book, watched the DVD and completed as much of the Knowledge Reviews as they can (book/DVD/KR's takes ~8 hours IMHO) BEFORE showing up for the first day of class will probably do all right in this format, as long as the student instructor ratio does not exceed 4-1.

With regards to the post above; if 8-10 students are completing the Academic portion with one instructor in 1.5 - 2 hours, that is not enough time, and that is pretty much not an opinion. There are 4 quizzes, with each one being graded and discussed followed by a 50 question final that also gets graded and discussed, which is at least 2 hours for that many students. Pretty much means going over the KR's is not done to complete the Academics in 2 hours.

IMHO, this is how more than half the divers in the world are certified every year, so if you have ever done charter dives on a vacation many of the divers you have at least been on the boat with were certified this way.

Yeah, time-wise it can be done. But if it's 10 in the class it would be a squeeze. The Instructor must demonstrate all the skills and sign off on each one for each student. The DMs and DMCs help only those who need extra help on a skill. Hope they have a warm pool....For the classroom there is also the 50 question written test.

From what I understand, a DMC would only be able to help under the direct supervision of a current teaching status Instructor. That would mean if only one Instructor was in the pool, the Instructor could not be working with one student while a DMC is helping another student. I have seen operators who seem to trim their staffing budget by using DMC when in fact the are required by Standards to use DM's or higher. Then again, I could be wrong.

I was recently certified in a class that scheduled only one day for the pool. For the pool session, there were only two of us, me and my boyfriend, and I really felt like it wasn't enough time to get comfortable. It actually turned out that we were able to go a second time and practice while the rest of the class did their session, and that made a huge difference. Had we not done that, I would have been completely worried and unprepared for the OW dives. Some might not have that problem, but I would encourage you to do a class with more than one pool session. Just having a little time to process what you learned between the first and second sessions will help. I think it would be ideal to have more than two, but I know that most classes these days are scheduled this way.

The DM can help a student when the OWSI is helping another. However the Student must preform the skill to the OWSI to pass that skill. For example if a student need extra practice he can do so with the DM, while the OWSI is monitoring the skill being preformed by other students.

I'm kinda going off memory here, but I think that is what is going on with PADI's DM in terms of assisting OW confines....

For Padi's requirements, the 20 confined skills can be done in one session. Although, I think this is pretty darn overwelming. Regardless of the size of the group...

The longer the class in days not hours the more time you have to process what you learn. I find that my 5 day class students turn out better divers than my 2 day classes. I have never tried to teach to CW in one day.

I was actually wondering about DMC's helping in OW Confined. Not questioning DM's helping, but thanks for the details.