Now this might be the coolest and most rewarding PADI course that you will ever take. By training as a PADI IDC Staff Instructor at Sairee Cottage Diving you will become a mentor to PADI Instructor trainees; people who want to change their lives and live that same dive dream that you chose to do yourself – to become a Dive Instructor. A PADI IDC Staff Instructor is only inches away from teaching at PADI Course Director level, so this qualification should push your dive career into overdrive.
Becoming a Mentor of Teacher-trainees
Do you remember how cool it was when you became a PADI Dive Instructor? Do you remember that time when you were not only teaching your new PADI Open Water, Advanced and Rescue Diver students but you where also teaching your DMTs/DMCs or Divemaster assistants who where helping you with your PADI recreational courses? Do you remember how cool it was to teach them and show them all the professional diver tips and tricks to keep your course running smoothly, safely and fun?
If you do, then becoming a PADI IDC Staff Instructor will take you to the next level and you will now teach others how to become a successful PADI Assistant Instructor or help a PADI Course Director to successfully teach new Open Water Scuba Instructors during the PADI IDC. Koh Tao in Thailand is famous for being one of the best places in the world to become a PADI IDC Staff Instructor.
How important is a PADI IDC Staff Instructor?
What a lot of people don’t know is that a good PADI IDC Staff Instructor is very close to a PADI Course Director. IDC Staff instructors are in a way the assistants of Course Directors during PADI IDC training, similar to how Divemasters are for PADI Dive Instructors during recreational courses. However in my experience the really good PADI Divemasters and IDC Staff Instructors are way more then just assistants, they are the life blood of your successful course.
That is why at Sairee Cottage Diving here on Koh Tao, we will teach you an IDC Staff Instructor course that will focus on becoming a Mentor, an educator, an assistant, a teacher of teachers and how to make a team out of all the PADI Course Directors and IDC candidates that you will teach in the future. To become the best is not as simple as just evaluating someone to get a 4.2 on their Confined Water Presentation. To become the best you need to become a people person and you will need all the extras that we throw into our IDC Staff Instructor program.
The best things you will learn in your IDC Staff Instructor course
On this course you will be working closely with Marcel van den Berg your IDC PADI Platinum Course Director at Sairee Cottage Diving. Marcel has an enormous amount of experience teaching at all levels. But he has also had the opportunity to observe many other PADI Divemasters and Dive Instructors along the way noticing many differences in individual teaching abilities and the quality of their course.
What stood out the most is that the most successful and best dive professionals have a great attitude and the unsuccessful ones tend to be more negative. So how did these “bad diving instructors” get to this point? Was it all from themselves or their personality or did they, perhaps, get poor mentoring causing them to lack high-quality teaching skills because of that? We believe that leadership and inspiration come mostly from the top down. Sadly, most “bad diving instructors” were not taught by the best or the most caring Course Directors. That is why at Sairee Cottage Diving we put a lot of effort in teaching you how to go about teaching others to become the best diving instructor/teacher possible. To be caring, friendly, humorous, patient…to be a good listener and so much more!
If you get the importance of these characteristics then you are already, for the most part, a great IDC Staff Instructor.
Other things you will learn is how to give PADI Assistant Instructor and IDC presentations, evaluate IDC Confined Water, Open Water and Classroom Knowledge Development Presentations. You will also do the PADI IDC Exams again and give a few IDC presentations.
If you get the importance of these characteristics then you are already, for the most part, a great IDC Staff Instructor.
Other things you will learn is how to give PADI Assistant Instructor and IDC presentations, evaluate IDC Confined Water, Open Water and Classroom Knowledge Development Presentations. You will also do the PADI IDC Exams again and give a few IDC presentations.
Learning how to Evaluate IDC candidates
PADI IDC candidates get scored between a 1 and a 5 on their Confined Water, Open Water and Classroom presentations. A lot of IDC candidates focus only on getting the highest scores possible in the IDC and Instructor Examination, and because of this, a lot of IDC Staff Instructors and Course Directors only focus on helping Dive Instructor candidates get these “5s”.
As great as this sounds we know that being the best diving instructor has little to do with getting a 5 during the Instructor Development Course or the Instructor Examination. To become a great diving instructor, candidates need to have great oversight, good character, have amazing organisation skills, be friendly, display environmental awareness, recognise trouble before it happens, recognise when student stress levels change and so much more.
This is the reason that we at Sairee Cottage Diving on Koh Tao focus a lot more on teaching our IDC Candidates the importance of these great attributes, and during the IDC Staff Instructor course we will teach you how to do that in a successful manner too.
Giving a 4.2 score for example depends on a lot of factors like how far through the course the IDC candidate is, what’s their attitude like, how are their overall teaching skills, etc, then we consider all the PADI performance requirements and criteria on our PADI IDC evaluation slates/documents. We will teach you how to evaluate IDC candidates in a realistic, holistic way and not just to write down a score.
“Please read more here about realism and real life teaching during the PADI IDC”
What can I do after my IDC Staff Instructor course on Koh Tao in Thailand?
When you become a PADI Staff Instructor you can teach PADI Assistant Instructors independently. This can be a great market in many western countries on it’s own. If you are a Divemaster Instructor you can take your DM students to PADI Assistant Instructor level, getting them ready to graduate to OWSI by doing the rest of the IDC with a PADI Course Director.
You can also assist full-time PADI IDCs with a PADI Course Director which is a key step in become a PADI Course Director yourself.
IDC Staff Instructor materials needed
To become an IDC Staff Instructor with us at Sairee Cottage Diving, you’ll need (and be supplied with) a PADI Course Director Manual. This manual is a fantastic tool that you can use when teaching PADI Assistant Instructors, IDC candidates and also when assisting on PADI MSDT courses. You also need the Course Director manual to receive the code that you need to write on your PADI IDC Staff Instructor application form.
Besides the manual you will also need the PADI Confined Evaluation Slate and the PADI Open Water Evaluation Slate. These PADI Evaluation slates are used to evaluate IDC candidates in the pool/confined or in open water. These will be the same evaluation slates the PADI Examiners will use during the PADI IE.
On top of this we will give you more then 20 GB of extra training tools to help make you even more successful as an IDC Staff Instructor.
IDC Staff Instructor prices:
PADI IDC Staff Instructor Course: 19900 THB
PADI IDC Staff Instructor eLearning Crewpack: 16200 THB
PADI fee: 214 AUD (Needs to be paid directly to PADI after completion of the course).
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