At the conclusion of the instructor development course, there's a test - the feared PADI Instructor Exam! It's human nature to focus on passing this exam, nonetheless it isn't the actual test at all! The true test is the initial class you will teach a PADI instructor.
This is the reason it's so important to choose the right IDC. You intend to study from a course director who teaches you to become a good instructor, NOT how exactly to pass the IE. Course directors that concentrate on getting the perfect score in the IE often do this as the price of preparing you for the real-life issues that the IDC must be preparing you for. The experience your course director has will play a huge part in this. When I first began teaching the Instructor development course as a fresh course director (coming up on ten years ago) I fell into this trap myself. I was more worried about my candidates passing the IE than making the effort to focus on more real world training.
As time passed and my confidence built I began to focus on the problems I knew my instructor candidates would face within their day-to-day work after they'd passed the IE. My new-found confidence allowed me to achieve this because I now knew that passing the IE would have been a natural result of this approach. I had taught a couple of IDCs and no-one had failed. My concern with certainly one of my candidates failing diminished scuba diving gili islands. My concentrate on the Instructor Exam within my training reduced. Therefore my training focus altered. I needed my instructor candidates to hit the bottom running. Teaching safe fun and well-organized PADI courses. It's one thing to pass the IE, but when you land your first job, in the event that you create a mess of the initial few courses you teach, you will lose that job. I realized it absolutely was my job to make sure that didn't happen. The moral of the story - Find a course director with years of experience. They will train you to become a successful scuba instructor, not only to pass the exam.
Train in conditions similar to those you plan to work. The IDC certainly isn't easy, it's made much harder by cold water and low visibility. So choosing to take the IDC in such conditions certainly, adds an quantity of task loading. However, in the event that you will teach in those conditions after passing the IE it could well be worth training in those same conditions. There's another choice, though. You may choose to take the IDC in nice warm tropical waters and obtain the OWSI rating under your belt, and then take MSDT training in tougher conditions, similar to those in that you intend to teach.
