Teaching Question

[boulderjohn]

I do not believe a 2-3 hour Discover/Try dive is an ample amount of time to fully comprehend and get comfortable with buoyancy

I guess I was hallucinating.

 

[boulderjohn]

is this padi? if so, how are you going to teach buoyancy in confined water when the 1st skills are done in water in which they can stand up?

There is nothing in the padi instructor manual that says students are to know buoyancy control for dsd/intro diving. In fact, inflate/deflate bcd is for an intro/dsd pool session and is not required for a intro dive in confined open water. most of the time the instructor is controlling buoyancy for intro divers. With dsd in open water, using a decent line the max depth is 6ft and only 1:1 ratio

Wow! I feel like the debates from a dozen years ago are starting again. Those were troublesome times as people argued that you couldn't do it in a PADI course, PADI officials were quoted as saying you certainly can, and the naysayers responding that the PADI officials being quoted were just voicing personal opinions and were not within PADI standards.

BTW, I posed for the pictures PADI published of it being done in the first shallow water dives, so I do have some experience with it.

What I consider difficult is to have them staying still midwater in perfect buoyancy and trim control.

No, we don't get them to that level immediately, but we get them plenty close enough.

 

[Angelo Farina]

No, we don't get them to that level immediately, but we get them plenty close enough.

STill, this require to provide them with a tank equipped with a BSC or jacket:
this has obviously some advantages, but also some drawbacks.
In my past experience, not using the BCD, we attempted to teach them using their lungs (after proper weighting) - the old style, like in 1970...
So emptying the lungs for descending, keeping them half full for being in balance, and filling them above normal for becoming buoyant.
I wonder if making this first experience of breathing underwater without a BCD is still something which can be practised, or if the BCD is now considered a mandatory item, which must always be used when scuba diving.

 

[tursiops]

oh, ok. i’m checking with my course director but i think you can get away with this by doing an “excursion dive”. Padi of course

View attachment 787727

Excursion dives are part of the OW course, not an independent concept. From the PADI Training Bulletin 4Q2018:
"Excursion dives are separate touring dives in between training dives during the Open Water Diver Course that allow students to get additional experience under supervision."

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Hey everyone, let's not beat up @AnotherDiverHere. His skepticism is understandable. When I started teaching, I didn't know it was possible, and it took a bit of time on SB before I decided to start trying. He and I have exchanged numbers and will talk things out.

The last time I taught OW with a pool, I had a class of 6. I needed 5 of the 6 hours to get through all the skills at a level that I felt was appropriate. The last hour was spent on buoyancy/finning games.

So if you were teaching a class, in the first 2 hours, you should complete all of CW1 and CW2 and then maybe some dive flexible skills. Now since DSD is an experience, the number of skills is reduced and the point is to get the participants finning around the pool and enjoyin being neutrally buoyant.

@AnotherDiverHere will get there. He has demonstrated the desire to do so. Let's not get snarky. Let's pretend we're not on SB.

 

[tursiops]

STill, this require to provide them with a tank equipped with a BSC or jacket:
this has obviously some advantages, but also some drawbacks.
In my past experience, not using the BCD, we attempted to teach them using their lungs (after proper weighting) - the old style, like in 1970...
So emptying the lungs for descending, keeping them half full for being in balance, and filling them above normal for becoming buoyant.
I wonder if making this first experience of breathing underwater without a BCD is still something which can be practised, or if the BCD is now considered a mandatory item, which must always be used when scuba diving.

I certainly hope that in the last 50 years we have learned something about teaching, about diving equipment, and about safe diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

STill, this require to provide them with a tank equipped with a BSC or jacket:
this has obviously some advantages, but also some drawbacks.
In my past experience, not using the BCD, we attempted to teach them using their lungs (after proper weighting) - the old style, like in 1970...
So emptying the lungs for descending, keeping them half full for being in balance, and filling them above normal for becoming buoyant.
I wonder if making this first experience of breathing underwater without a BCD is still something which can be practised, or if the BCD is now considered a mandatory item, which must always be used when scuba diving.

A critical rule of performance instruction is to make the instruction "gamelike." That means your instructional processes should as much as possible match the processes they will use in the real event. You don't need to deprive students of the BCD they will use in diving to teach them to use their lungs for buoyancy.

If you teach students while they are neutrally buoyant and in prone position, they are constantly learning about buoyancy and the use of the lungs. During the first session, when teaching the introductory skills of regulator recovery, mask clearing, and the OOA process, everyone in the class is constantly working on the effect of breathing on buoyancy while each individual in the class is doing the skill being taught with the instructor. The student doing the skill with the instructor is learning to control that buoyancy while doing the skill.

That continues throughout the class. Students who are not currently performing a skill have no choice but to practice buoyancy. At first you have to be a little patient at times. For example, as students move into position to watch your next demonstration, you may have to wait a little longer while students breathe their way into position, but as you watch them, you know they are learning something valuable that makes that little extra time worthwhile. By the end of the class, all that time will be amply made up by their improved performance on the later skills.

 

[VikingDives]

@boulderjohn

I agree with teaching students skills while neutrally buoyant. I believe I stated this in the initial post.

My goal for conducting Discover/Try dives is to give people the experience/sensation of breathing under water. I feel this is a big hurdle for some people. I understand and am aware of what the standards are.

I do not believe a 2-3 hour Discover/Try dive is an ample amount of time to fully comprehend and get comfortable with buoyancy. An hour to an hour and a half on the surface with an hour to an hour and a half in the water.

I agree that buoyancy should be introduced and practiced. My question was should the focus be on this or just giving the student a feel for being underwater and to see if they want to move forward.

I don't know how long it takes me to get students where I want them to be, but I'd guess it's about 45 minutes...

I put them in the water with no weights or fins. Just a BP/W and regs.

I ask them to try and decend and lay on their stomachs. I tell them they can stand up at any point. We get all the air out of their BCDs...

I add weights in 2 to 4 pound increments until they can decend. They've already spent some time breathing underwater by this point, but everytime they decend they are trying to get horizontal...

Once they've decended, I wait a moment and signal them up.

My next step is to ask them to decend and add a little air to their wing so they aren't laying on the bottom. I tell them their goal is to hover in mid-water like me.

Once they are hovering for a few seconds and are off the bottom - we go back to the surface. Fins usually go on here... Then I add in regulator skills and mask clearing. I do those skills in NB/T. The students are still working on controlling their buoyancy because I've alread taught that. I don't worry about them hovering or touching the bottom... They'll continue to improve buoyancy and trim.

You will have to tweak tank and weight positioning. Keep in mind that all this work up front shows the students that you care about them, you care about them learning correctly and you care about doing things correctly.

All of this will be modeled by your students because they want to be like you...

Because they haven't seen or experienced anything else, I'd guess that if you are working with 4 students (I maintain a 3:1 student-to-professional ratio in all basic courses), it won't take more than 90 minutes to finish all of this. . . I think I usually get this done in about an hour, but I haven't timed it.

If you haven't taught this way before, I can see why you'd think that teaching neutrally is going to take a long time. . . I worried about that too when I started, but you quickly discover that the time spent weighting them correctly etc. is time well spent.

Because your students aren't familiar with kneeling/touching the bottom of the pool and because you've only modeled one way to do things they acquire those skills rapidly. If you've taught kneeling, then when you get around to hovering it's much more difficult... Now you are trying to break a bad habit and show something new.

It's the same with frog kicking and back kicking. You can easily incorporate those kicks into traditional pool sessions and have your students doing them. They aren't going to be beautiful, but they'll have the tools to teach themselves.

 

[The Chairman]

Let them discover Scuba: not kneeling. Keep it fun, start on the surface and work down. Weight them correctly from the beginning and use hoops in the water for them to swim through.

 

[AnotherDiverHere]

So from all of these posts, I think the approach I will take is this:

Slap 40lbs of lead onto the student
Hand them a 50lbs lift bag
Hand them a spare air and say good luck.
Also, say "Welcome to Scuba" as they jump in the water

All jokes aside, I appreciate the usual back and forth SB posts. This has made me think of different approach's I can use to provide people with a good, safe first experience into the world of Scuba Diving. All while building foundational skills from the beginning. I have connected with @wetb4igetinthewater and spoke with some other folks about what the best way to move forward is.