Wanted - PIE mentor

[Stewart]

Hi all,

I am due to sit my PIE in a few months time and am looking for any willing BSAC Instructors who can give me a bit of support (the odd phone call or e-mail) into what preparation and approach is needed for this event.

I don't think this will amount to a great deal but it would be useful to have someone to bounce ideas off / lesson plans as the event date gets nearer.

I would be grateful to anyone who is familiar with current BSAC Instuctor methology and who would be interested in giving me a little support. I can provide contact details at that point.

Stewart
(North west)

[Dave Sydenham]

Hi Stewart,

I'm not in your area but more than willing to give any advice I can. Please feel free to drop me an email or give me a ring any time. You can get my contact details here - http://www.bsac.org/page/148/scotland-north-region.htm

Cheers!

Dave
:)

[Steve Pearson]

Hi Stewart

PM sent to you

[Paul Beal]

Hi Stewart,

Hopefully someone NW based can actually mentor you but for practical experience the Yorkshire Region are running a prep event on 5th May if you are interested. PM me for more details.

Paul

[Gary Sedgwick]

Hi Stewart,

Some very general advice, from someone who took their PIE last year, that you've probably had from others:

Firstly, practise, practise, practise! Plan out every lesson you think you might get and run through them as many times as possible under the watchful eye of preferably an AI (with other people acting as students), and preferably at the PIE venue. The more you practise each lesson, the more confidence you gain and the more opportunity you have to refine your lesson plans. After being assigned your "lesson" at the PIE, you ideally want to turn to the lesson plan (NB I wrote all mine up in the underwater notebook sold on the BSAC site) and think "no problem, I just need to do exactly what I did the last couple of times when this went really well"!

Secondly, get to know the underwater landscape at the PIE venue intimately if you can. Make sure you know all the possible places for teaching skills in 2m, 6m etc. - you never know if your favourite spot you were banking on using will be occupied on the day.

Thirdly, really break each lesson down, and then get an AI to show you how to break it down even further. The more things are broken down, the more each step becomes simple and easy to teach. For example, I had compass navigation on my PIE; I started with a dry run something like: "this is a diving compass and you hold it level this way up using both hands, like this. You have a go... and now you... very good. This arrow shows the direction of travel so we hold the compass with the arrow pointing in front of us, like this. You have a go... and now you... very good. This is the magnetic needle..." etc. Your lesson plans end up having lots of individual steps, but it makes the teaching so much easier.

And last, remember they're your lesson plans, and there's no perfect or "right" way of teaching any lesson. The real point of the "lesson" you're giving is for your teaching skills to be examined, so make it easy as possible on yourself, and pack as much teaching into your lesson as you can. Say you get "DSMB deployment" as a lesson - how will you teach it? Mid-water deployment? Deployment from the bottom? Tethered? One DSMB shared between students, or each having their own? All possibilities, but you might find some more straightforward and allow you to demonstrate more of your teaching skills in the time allowed. Also, make use of every opportunity to teach - entries, exits, kit-ups, buddy checks, the lot. I heard a funny anecdote from someone who'd been on a PIE and watched another examinee's intricately threaded shot weightbelt fall to pieces around his ankles during the kit-up of the lesson he was giving. Instead of being mortified, he declared to his students "this is a shot weightbelt, we thread this bit through here like this... now you have a go... and you... very good". Apparently he got a merit :rolleyes:

Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me/drop me an e-mail if you like.