Procedure Versus Style

Procedure Versus Style

Procedure Versus Style

by Jen Sharp published in Parachutist Magazine July 2014

As an instructor, you’ve probably been there: The first-jump course students are still in the classroom, and it’s late afternoon already. “He loves to hear himself talk,” another instructor murmurs in your ear. “True,” you think sarcastically to yourself, “but at least he covers the information, unlike some people I know.”

Where is the balance? Is it up to individual instructors to set their own time limits for classes? What about the amount of information they should cover? What about getting the students involved? What if one instructor’s directions conflict with another’s? We all love doing things our own way, making them “ours”… but how much freedom of expression should we use?

Defining two terms—procedure and style—can help provide the answers to these questions. While procedures should be stringently consistent, individual instructors’ styles can vary widely.

Procedure
A drop zone’s student program should include a written set of procedures that it communicates to the team. The team of instructors and coaches should accept these procedures, practice them consistently and review them periodically. The procedural content that needs to be uniform for all instructors and students across a particular student program includes:

  • Information: This includes information about FAA regulations, USPA materials, as well as information about industry standards and local DZ policy. In other words, all students should use the same study materials (such as skydiveschool.org, the USPA Integrated Student Program or a particular set of printed posters that display dive flows for the category jumps).
  • Safety Methods: Instructors should teach identical ways of performing emergency procedures, use the same landing patterns and landing-pattern altitudes, etc.
  • Vocabulary: To reinforce fundamental concepts, the words and phrases the staff uses to explain ideas should be positive-specific and consistent.
  • Presentation Techniques:If one instructor uses a particular method to demonstrate dive flows, all instructors should. These techniques should focus on getting the student actively involved in the learning process.
  • Performance Goals: The teaching staff should institute a consistent standard for students who wish to move on to the next level or task (e.g., requiring all students to repeat a dive flow until they can perform it without verbal cues or requiring all students to score 100 percent on a written exam).

Style
So, does having a written set of procedures meant that we all have to be cookie-cutter images of each other? No way! For a student, part of the fun of learning is having an instructor who can make the material come alive with his personality. But how can you mix it up and interject your own style? You can:

  • Choose to use humor or decide to be a more serious presenter
  • Use creative teaching methods such as inventing mnemonics to make remembering lists easier or by adding an unexpected emergency procedure practice when the student is rehearsing another task
  • Relate to the students’ past experiences inside and outside the world of skydiving
  • Choose between having a laid-back or a more down-to-business approach
  • Decide whether to speak in a vernacular or more formal language style
  • Cultivate either a personal or more academic manner with your students

The Team
In addition to each individual looking at his own procedures and style, the team of coaches and instructors should also evaluate its consistency as a whole. Staff should answer these two important questions:

  1. How often do you review materials for the first-jump course or rating courses to compare information to the USPA Basic Safety Requirements, Skydiver’s Information Manual and Instructional Rating Manual?
    1. Umm... never?
    2. Before each course
    3. After each course
    4. After each USPA Board meeting
    5. At the beginning of the season/year

If you want to be efficient and work less, try reviewing after each course while good ideas and changes are fresh in your mind. Even if you don’t implement changes immediately, keep a record of what the team should look at later. A quick review after each board meeting and a more formal review at the beginning of the season are good, too. Just as we teach students to check their altimeters periodically, instructors should check their guideposts periodically.

  1. How consistent is the student experience at your drop zone?
    1. Our students get the same information presented in basically the same structure and are consistently asked the same questions using standard language regardless of who is teaching
    2. Depending on who teaches them, a student may experience varying amounts of information and not everyone uses the same outlines, dive flows or materials
    3. We take information from the same materials, but each instructor presents it in his own way and time frame

If you want to provide a good experience that focuses on safety, consistency is important to your students. They will know what to expect and will see your team as professional. In response, they will give their best in return.

Consistent results require consistent procedures: this means the same information, the same safety methods, the same vocabulary, the same presentation methods and the same expectations of performance. Style is the icing on the cake!

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  • 1 July 2014
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Another portmanteau from the dictionary of Jen, aka Jenictionary:

"errucation" 

[eh-rr-yoo-KAY-shuhn]

Meshing error with education to mean, learning from others’ mistakes rather than your own.

Nothing will happen without the belief that it will happen.

When I was younger, I said yes to everything. It was necessary to create opportunities from nothing. As I get older, I say no more often. I can now choose the opportunities I want to spend valuable time on, and this turns my productivity and impact on.

NO = ON

I just made up another word... Dictionary of Jen:

"confirmationbiatis" 

[kon-fer-MEY-shuhn-BAHY-tuhs]

The condition of suffering from chronic or extreme confirmation bias. Afflicting otherwise healthy, smart, normal individuals, this malady usually flares up after controversial events, especially political in nature.
{See itoldyouso}

Authority without responsibility is dangerous. Responsibility without authority is ineffective. Without either, you just have a title.

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I say, Sweat the small stuff! How do I know this works? Mandelbrot Theory.

The best way to handle fear, especially illogical fear, is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I believe in Serendipity more than Luck.

I'm defined not by what has happened to me, but by what I've done despite it.

What is Education? They say you learn from your mistakes. But I say it's lazier to learn from others' mistakes.  #ShareYourKnowledge

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Stolen from a friend: Don’t be the sage on the stage. Be the guide on the side.

Knowledge dissipates Fear.

My wishes get me nowhere. My dreams get me anywhere. My actions get me there.

I have a tendency to be accidentally controversial. It happens when I speak the truth.

Be A Part instead of Apart.

The more overtones you have, the more resonant you can be.

Overtones are akin to richness of experience, depth of understanding.
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Though I awake much earlier than most, I am not an early bird. I'm late compared to the birds. I am an early human.

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Sometimes we sacrifce the equality of rights by trying to contrive equality of outcomes.

Another word from the Dictionary of Jen:

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[kəˈmēlyən teɡrədē]

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 Another portmanteau from the Jenictionary:

"compattention" 

[comp-uh-TEN-shuh n]

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"Do your Best" rather than "Be the Best"

Anyone who claims to be elightened, yet uses that same claim to infer superiority over those "unenlightened" ... not there yet. Try again.

A small hinge opens a big door.

Momentum is useless without the right trajectory.

 


My daughter and the swingset

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