How to prepare myself for the instructor development course?
Preparation for the IDC is very important to insure an enjoyable learning experience during the IDC.
You start will buying the course material and checking the required material list to insure having all the required material for the course.
Once you have everything, you should start to make a schedule for studying.
The Dive Theory
The dive theory is not something that will be learning during the IDC, as this subjects has been covered during the Divemaster program, however you will be evaluated on your knowledge for the five topics and To prepare yourself for the 5 topics, you need to go over the following topics from the instructor manual, and then answer the correlated section in the knowledge workbook.
After completing all the 5 segments you can evaluate your performance by doing the Divemaster 5 topic exam, and it should be timed.
You should do all the 5 topic in one go over 2 ½ hours.
The Standard and procedures
This aria is very important step to insure that you will be able to find the answers back quickly.
There is a lot of people think that as an instructor you should know the instructor manual by heart. This is wrong. Yes you must be able to know the structure of the manual, how it works and where about in the manual you should find the answer for your questions; this will come only by reading the manual more than one time and understanding how it works.
So go through the manual one time to read the headlines, this way you know what is the main component of the manual, then go back again and read slowly what is under each headline. If you are using a paper version of the manual, then bring some dividers and start to divide the chapters apart.
After you book your place with us you will also receive the standards and procedures preparation exercise book that include many questions regarding the standard that will help you to get more familiar with your instructor manual and make you better prepared.
Skill demonstration
The best way to master the skill demonstration is to remember that you are showing someone how to do the skill.
The common mistakes are mainly come from two things, either you do not know the skill or you forgot that you should be teaching the skill and you just do the skill.
So your first step is to review the performance requirement for the skills from the instructor manual and review the common mistakes from the Divemaster manual and the PADI’s Guide to teaching. Then start to think of a way to explain all that to the student without talking, so it is with body language, and what angel is better for the student to see everything.
