Training Materials, which is better?
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rstofer
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Of course the PADI materials are written for a 10 year old. They train kids. What good would it do for the material to be written at a post-graduate level. The DVDs are aimed at kids as well because most kids do better with a visual format.
Graver is a great book and so is the BSAC manual. I personally like "The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving" as it has all the required material with a pretty decent presentation. I figure if a new diver knew the stuff in that book (alone), they would be well on their way.
Of the major players (my definition: PADI, NAUI, SSI), I would pick NAUI for adult readers and PADI for youngsters.
There is no reason to limit the educational material to just that offered by the selected agency. It is always worth a trip to the book store to see what's available. With Alibris it is now quite easy (and inexpensive) to build up a pretty good library on the subject.
Richard
Graver is a great book and so is the BSAC manual. I personally like "The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving" as it has all the required material with a pretty decent presentation. I figure if a new diver knew the stuff in that book (alone), they would be well on their way.
Of the major players (my definition: PADI, NAUI, SSI), I would pick NAUI for adult readers and PADI for youngsters.
There is no reason to limit the educational material to just that offered by the selected agency. It is always worth a trip to the book store to see what's available. With Alibris it is now quite easy (and inexpensive) to build up a pretty good library on the subject.
Richard
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The information a new diver needs to know is there. I find some of the more advanced classes a little brief for my liking, but there's plenty of meat there -- even if it is presented in a hot dog instead of a as a steak. TSandM is correct that there is a lot of good information.
For me it's more about the information's presentation than what information is there -- excepting the occasional gross factual errors that typically appear to be editing gaffs.
Kingpatzer, I'm half tempted to print out and send you my GUE books -- if you're the kind of person who enjoys criticizing editing, you'd have a field day! For books which are generally well written and packed with information, they're atrociously edited.
I received a PM asking me to participate in this thread. The writer assumed I had not seen it. I had seen it and ignored it because I did not want to get into it. I will now give it a shot.
I am one of those education experts that Jim thinks are pure scum and responsible for the demise of education today. Jim compares the results of today's education with the Utopic results of the mythic past. Sorry, Jim, that past never existed. All objective data says that the quality of education has been steadily improving over the past decades. That does not mean I think it is doing well enough--I don't at all. In fact, I believe radical changes are necessary to make it what it should be. That does not mean that everything about it is bad. In fact, a lot of it is very good, and one of the biggest problems we face in education is the mismatch between instructional materials and instruction. Research indicates that teachers in the classroom, especially the high school, generally teach the way they themselves were taught, ignoring the instructional materials they have or the design of the programs they are supposed to be teaching. They are using 21st century materials, but they are imposing 19th century methodologies upon it.
And I am not exaggerating. The basic American curriculum still used today was created in 1892 and based on the entrance requirements for Harvard. Any attempts to change it to something more up to date are squelched by people screaming that the standards are being diminished.
I have far too much to say on this topic to put in this little window. Those who are interested may want to visit my column or some of my articles linked in my signature. I will try a quick summary of what I have to say.
In the last couple of decades, researchers have studied which instructional strategies have the greatest impact on student learning. They have also researched textbook design to determine what works best. The results of that research are often dramatic. The most effective instructional techniques and textbook designs are superior to the least effective by an order of magnitude. Bob Marzano has published several books recently summarizing that research for those who are interested.
This matters because of differences in student capabilities and learning styles. Some students have the innate ability, motivation, and learning styles that enable them to learn relatively effectively no matter how material is presented. They will succeed at what is generally considered to be a high level in spite of poor instructional delivery. Others need to have quality instruction in order to learn. In the past we used to see fact-based lecture and straight text delivery as the epitome of education, and we accepted the high drop out rate (more than 50% in the early 1950s) as acceptable collateral damage--we gave everyone the opportunity to learn, and it was not our fault that they did not learn.
Today we believe we have to make all students succeed, and we believe we can do that if we apply the right strategies at the right time to the right students. What may surprise people is the effect of using those techniques on the students who were "successful" with traditional methodologies. They learn faster, and they learn more. We now realize that what we used to call success was actually a higher level of failure. All students learn better when they encounter good instructional technique; some can get by without it, but others must have it or fail. For a more detailed explanation, see this article.
Harvard Medical School realized a number of years ago that its traditional educational design for its cream-of-the-crop student body was not effective, so it totally revamped its system to a more modern design, with unquestionably stellar results.
Yes, the major problem with recreational level instructional materials is that they have to be written to the level of the youngest possible student and yet contain all the necessary information. That is a significant challenge--try it yourself. The best instructional materials use design features, though, that are independent of reading level. These design features will help people of any level learn and (especially) retain content better.
Those who are capable of getting by in a straight lecture, here-are-the-facts format often feel superior to people who cannot succeed in that fashion, and they often see attempts to use quality educational technique as "dumbing down." The psychological effect is the belief that if I am working harder than someone else and if others cannot get it, then I must be learning more. That is not true. It is actually possible to learn more with less effort when the material is properly presented, and that means better education for everyone. Making it easier to learn something does not mean that something is not being learned.
I am one of those education experts that Jim thinks are pure scum and responsible for the demise of education today. Jim compares the results of today's education with the Utopic results of the mythic past. Sorry, Jim, that past never existed. All objective data says that the quality of education has been steadily improving over the past decades. That does not mean I think it is doing well enough--I don't at all. In fact, I believe radical changes are necessary to make it what it should be. That does not mean that everything about it is bad. In fact, a lot of it is very good, and one of the biggest problems we face in education is the mismatch between instructional materials and instruction. Research indicates that teachers in the classroom, especially the high school, generally teach the way they themselves were taught, ignoring the instructional materials they have or the design of the programs they are supposed to be teaching. They are using 21st century materials, but they are imposing 19th century methodologies upon it.
And I am not exaggerating. The basic American curriculum still used today was created in 1892 and based on the entrance requirements for Harvard. Any attempts to change it to something more up to date are squelched by people screaming that the standards are being diminished.
I have far too much to say on this topic to put in this little window. Those who are interested may want to visit my column or some of my articles linked in my signature. I will try a quick summary of what I have to say.
In the last couple of decades, researchers have studied which instructional strategies have the greatest impact on student learning. They have also researched textbook design to determine what works best. The results of that research are often dramatic. The most effective instructional techniques and textbook designs are superior to the least effective by an order of magnitude. Bob Marzano has published several books recently summarizing that research for those who are interested.
This matters because of differences in student capabilities and learning styles. Some students have the innate ability, motivation, and learning styles that enable them to learn relatively effectively no matter how material is presented. They will succeed at what is generally considered to be a high level in spite of poor instructional delivery. Others need to have quality instruction in order to learn. In the past we used to see fact-based lecture and straight text delivery as the epitome of education, and we accepted the high drop out rate (more than 50% in the early 1950s) as acceptable collateral damage--we gave everyone the opportunity to learn, and it was not our fault that they did not learn.
Today we believe we have to make all students succeed, and we believe we can do that if we apply the right strategies at the right time to the right students. What may surprise people is the effect of using those techniques on the students who were "successful" with traditional methodologies. They learn faster, and they learn more. We now realize that what we used to call success was actually a higher level of failure. All students learn better when they encounter good instructional technique; some can get by without it, but others must have it or fail. For a more detailed explanation, see this article.
Harvard Medical School realized a number of years ago that its traditional educational design for its cream-of-the-crop student body was not effective, so it totally revamped its system to a more modern design, with unquestionably stellar results.
Yes, the major problem with recreational level instructional materials is that they have to be written to the level of the youngest possible student and yet contain all the necessary information. That is a significant challenge--try it yourself. The best instructional materials use design features, though, that are independent of reading level. These design features will help people of any level learn and (especially) retain content better.
Those who are capable of getting by in a straight lecture, here-are-the-facts format often feel superior to people who cannot succeed in that fashion, and they often see attempts to use quality educational technique as "dumbing down." The psychological effect is the belief that if I am working harder than someone else and if others cannot get it, then I must be learning more. That is not true. It is actually possible to learn more with less effort when the material is properly presented, and that means better education for everyone. Making it easier to learn something does not mean that something is not being learned.
I loved this ^^^
The USN?!?!?! As in "Accelerate your life" USN??? That's freakin' awesome! I've never heard anybody say that...at least they let you blow $hit up. Maybe I should try to get a c-card from them...do they offer a weekend course?knotical that is the funniest thing I've heard all week, I'm gonna share this one!
I believe the subject was Training Materials. You do not have to join the Navy, be accepted into their training program, or even spend money to get a copy of the US Navy Diving Manual. It is free (in electronic format) since it is an unclassified government publication.
I agree with knotical, the Navy Diving Manual excellent, especially for people interested in a thorough treatment of physics and physiology of diving through Saturation. BTW, it would be difficult to read the manual a weekend. The Scuba course alone took four 40+ hour weeks when I took it, not sure now. Do not confuse combat divers like Seals with Navy divers who are responsible for salvage, construction, EOD, and submarine rescue.
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Would you believe that I received the following message:
"The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 5 characters."
I just tried to reply with, "PSAI."
It occurs to me that 3 items -'American', '1892', and 'Harvard' - in this passage could be changed, and it would be an apt characterization of what is probably the most common theme among threads on SB.
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