Instructional rating Seminar vs./plus Safety Day

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The "official" day for USPA's Safety Day is in a couple of weeks, so maybe this is a good time to comment/ask.

When I ask instructors (and DZO's alike) what kind of Instructional Rating Seminars they have at their DZ, (and how often), I often get the answer, "Oh, we use Safety Day for that."

Well, there are some similarities, but they definitely aren't the same.

Safety Day is a personal review, kind of like the Biennial Flight Review for the pilot. (Practice what you haven't done in a while, get back up to speed in areas in which you might be weak.)

An Instructional Rating Seminar is more about teaching techniques, sharing ideas, agreeing on consistency among rating holders, telling new rating holders about things to watch out for, etc.

In a way, Instructional Rating Seminars are "continued education", at least for the less experienced rating holders, who can learn from the stories and ideas of the more experienced rating holders.

1. How do they do it where you are from? Separate? Combined?

2. And if separate, how often?

3. Instructional Rating Seminar topics?

e.g.
- New zero porosity student canopies. How are we going to change teaching students to xxxx?
- New aircraft. How are we going to teach xxxx exits?

[pchapman 279]

At one DZ I've been at we've long had an instructor meeting (and a video meeting) before the season. Or early in the season, if we had already been open during much of the winter.

Although not necessarily done at other DZ's, we have a tandem instructor meeting where the annual test is written and the UPT videos watched as they want one to do.

Sometimes meetings got sidetracked, eg, arguments about video vs. tandem pay. But if run well we could get a refresher on techniques, things we learned in the last year, review any incident reports from the last year, etc.

Sometimes the topics for the day would be split up, so it wasn't a 4 hour lecture by the DZO. One instructor would review one topic, another would head up another topic. While some assignments were obvious (eg, the staff rigger talks about gear issues), people didn't have to be the expert on a topic, as it just served to start the conversation.

We've had Safety Day separated from the instructional days as Safety Day was more jumper-run and wouldn't get going until later in spring. Lately the DZO has been better in scheduling instructor meetings into a single day, so one wasn't at his beck and call all winter to drive out for each of the meetings separately.

The DZ pilots, according to our Canadian Operating Certificate, also are required to have an annual training session on the ground (distinct from their annual in-air checks).

So the concept of an instructor meeting makes sense, especially if one doesn't have other good mechanism during the year to go over issues and procedures.

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

Last Nov we had an AFF standardization meeting. We talked through each AFF level and ironed out any differences in what we were teaching our students. 

It was a good thing. 

If we ever have another I want to go over all the canopy skills on the A - lic proficiency card, because I think we don't have a shared view of some of them. .

If planning a Rating Renewal Seminar, I would certainly search the last few issues of the [I]USPA Professional[/I]  as well as the published and local incidents for potential topics. I would also ask the instructional staff for issues. 

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[riggerrob 643]

Good idea!
I have worked at a few DZs where the DZO said: "If you want to work here this summer, you WILL attend the spring refresher training session."

We could all use a little refresher training and it helps keep everyone "on the same sheet of music."

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Quote

Good idea! ... We could all use a little refresher training and it helps keep everyone "on the same sheet of music."

Rob, by all means, give us some examples to my one question - "3. Instructional Rating Seminar topics?"

Perhaps we can keep this thread active, that is, unless most people just call Safety Day their Instructional Rating Seminar!

Safety Day can obviously include an Instructional Rating Seminar, so if anyone has any favorite topics, please mention them.

[PhreeZone 20]

In years past we've used a few hours after Safety day to cover:

AFF dive flow and changes to it. Specifically it was used to fine tune instructor exit placement and minor details around what goes in the log books.
Tandem procedures and reviewing of harness placement
Expectations for video deliverables. This had to do more around what the expectations were of the instructors to assist in getting good videos (rotation into the sun, lifting of students chin off video if they are not looking at the camera, etc)
Review of Tandem requirements for pre jump briefings

We've also used it for in-depth discussions around jumpsuit\shoes requirements for tandems among other items.

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