After certification: make a personal learning plan

Describe your starting point

Write down the environment where you trained, the equipment you used and how recently you completed the course. Add the skills that felt comfortable and those for which you still needed prompting. An honest starting point helps a provider organise support. It is more useful than a general statement that you passed everything or feel reasonably confident.

Choose one learning question

Pick a question that can be discussed before an outing and reviewed afterwards. For example: “What support would help me settle into this equipment?” Ask the instructor how that question should be addressed and whether it calls for a separate practice session. Avoid creating a long list of tasks that competes with attention to the actual dive.

Keep progress descriptive

A learning note should say what changed, under what conditions and with whose help. “More comfortable after the instructor adjusted the fit” explains more than a score out of ten. If there has been a break or your circumstances have changed, discuss refresher training instead of assuming your previous confidence still applies.

Reference: DAN: diving skills refresher ↗

A practical comparison

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