Step up your credentials: Become an SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor and live your dream as a professional!
If you love teaching and guiding people, enjoy scuba diving, and want to share your passion with others, you might want to consider becoming an SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor (OWSDI). The SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor course is designed to teach current Divemasters or Assistant Instructors certified with a recognized dive training organization the knowledge to effectively function as an open water scuba diver instructor. This program is divided into two sections: an instructor development course (IDC) and an instructor evaluation course (IEC).
If you are a dive professional with an instructor rating from another diver training organization, you may be eligible to crossover to an SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor rating. The crossover program acknowledges your prior instructor training and offers a pathway to become an SDI Instructor.
Course prerequisites:
- Minimum age 18
- Certified diver for a minimum of 6 months
- Proof of 100 logged dives completed in several different environments with varying depths
- Be certified as an SDI Divemaster, SDI Assistant Instructor, or equivalent
- Provide proof of current CPR, first aid, and oxygen provider*, where local law permits
* Note: CPR, first aid, and oxygen provider courses may be combined with the IDC Program by qualified instructors
- A Diver Medical Questionnaire signed by a physician within the last 12 months
Course Academics
Over eight days the IDC teaches you to conduct all SDI core courses.
What you can expect to learn:
The SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor course takes an in-depth look at all of the following and more:
- SDI Standards and Procedures
- History of SDI
- Products and procedures
- How to place an order
- Registration procedures
- Yearly renewals
- Liability and insurance
- Risk management
- Waivers and releases
- Filling out an accident report
- Methods of instruction
- Teaching theory, methods, and oral communications
- Lesson preparation
- Use of training aids
- SDI home study program, use of knowledge quest
- Successfully selling scuba
- Budgeting courses
- Recruiting students
- Organizing and scheduling a course
- Retail sales
- Instructor ethics
- Physics and physiology of diving
Some of the required skills you will have to demonstrate include:
- Present a minimum of
- Two classroom presentations
- Two lessons in confined water
- Two lessons in open water
- Show preparation, planning, and control in
- Dive management
- Diving activities
- Perform, to demonstrate quality, one complete rescue scenario
- Perform a 10-minute survival-float, without the use of swimming aids
- Complete a 400-meter swim on the surface, non-stop, any stroke, without the use of swimming aids, in less than 10 minutes; swim goggles permitted
- Complete an 800-meter swim with mask, snorkel, and fins non-stop without the use of arms in less than 17 minutes
- Bring a diver, simulating unconsciousness, up from a depth, not greater than 6 meters / 20 feet; at the surface swim them 100 meters in less than 4 minutes
- Pool/confined water
- Candidates must perform, to demonstrate quality, all skills listed in the SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Course
- Pool/confined water problem solving
- Open Water
- In open water, candidates must perform, in demonstration quality, all skills listed in the SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Course
- Open water problem-solving
Required Skill Performance for IEC, the student must:
- Present a minimum of
- One classroom presentation, minimum time 15 minutes in duration
- One full lesson in confined water
- One full lesson in open water
- The evaluating instructor trainer must verify all required subjects were covered and skills were performed
What’s in it for you?
Upon successful completion of this course, graduates may:
- Teach the SDI Open Water Scuba Diver, Advanced Adventure Diver Specialty, Computer Diver, Rescue Diver, Divemaster, and Assistant Instructor course
SDI Open Water Scuba Diver Instructor minimum requirements:
- Satisfactorily complete the SDI Instructor written exam or online equivalent
- Complete the IDC and the IEC
- Demonstrate mature and sound judgment concerning class planning and execution
How to take this course!
The course tuition is $ 3,225 plus tax per person. This does include tuition, mandatory instructor kits, the IDC online course, and tanks and weights for your training dives. It does not include SDI Instructor examination fees and application fees. These are subject to change annually, please contact us to inquire about current rates. A $500 deposit is required upon reservation. All rates are based on two or more candidates in one course.
