Advanced · Professional training
SCUBA Instructor
SCUBA Instructor training is the transition from professional dive leader to professional educator. Learn how to teach diving knowledge, demonstrate skills, evaluate student performance, manage training activities, and develop safe, capable, confident divers.
Go Beyond Leading Dives. Learn to Teach Diving.
SCUBA Instructor training is the transition from professional dive leader to professional educator. Learn how to teach diving knowledge, demonstrate skills, evaluate student performance, manage training activities, and develop safe, capable, confident divers.
Course Information
From Dive Leader to Dive Educator
Divemaster training teaches you how to organize and lead diving activities. Instructor training adds an entirely new responsibility: teaching another person how to dive.
Instructor candidates learn how to take diving knowledge and skills they already understand and present them in a way that students can safely learn, practice, and eventually perform independently.
This requires much more than being an excellent diver. An Instructor must be able to communicate clearly, identify learning problems, recognize developing safety concerns, demonstrate skills accurately, evaluate performance fairly, adapt teaching methods, and maintain control of the entire training environment.
What You'll Learn
Instructor development combines diving knowledge with professional teaching methods and practical experience.
Training includes areas such as:
- Methods of instruction and effective communication
- Lesson planning and preparation
- Teaching diving academics
- Confined-water instruction
- Open-water instruction
- Professional-quality skill demonstrations
- Evaluating and correcting student performance
- Student positioning and group control
- Problem recognition and intervention
- Use and supervision of qualified assistants
- Dive planning and training-site organization
- Risk management and professional responsibility
- Waivers, records, and course administration
- Emergency procedures and rescue
- Diving physics and physiology
- Standards, procedures, and certification requirements
- Professional ethics and Instructor judgment
Candidates are expected to understand not only how to perform a skill, but how to teach it, observe it, identify errors, provide meaningful correction, and determine when a student is truly ready to progress.
How the Program Works
Instructor training is an extensive professional-development program involving academic preparation, teaching practice, confined-water work, open-water training, examinations, and formal evaluation.
Candidates should expect approximately 100 hours or more of overall professional development and evaluation. The exact division between academics, practical application, supervised teaching, self-study, and evaluation differs between NAUI and SDI.
Throughout development, candidates practice preparing and presenting lessons in three major instructional environments:
- Academic or classroom instruction
- Confined-water skill development
- Open-water training
Candidates receive feedback and coaching throughout the development portion of the program before completing the formal evaluations required by the certification agency.
Teaching Presentations & Evaluations
A major portion of Instructor training involves actually teaching. Candidates prepare and deliver multiple presentations while being evaluated on organization, accuracy, communication, safety, student control, and teaching effectiveness.
Evaluations may include:
- Academic teaching presentations
- Confined-water teaching presentations
- Open-water teaching presentations
- Professional-quality skill demonstrations
- Student problem recognition and correction
- Dive-management and class-control scenarios
- Rescue performance
- Watermanship evaluations
- Diving-knowledge examinations
- Standards and procedures examinations
Candidates are evaluated on more than technical accuracy. Instructor-level performance also requires mature judgment, professionalism, communication, and the ability to maintain an effective and controlled learning environment.
Professional Skill Demonstrations
As an Instructor, performing a diving skill correctly is no longer enough. The skill must be performed slowly, clearly, accurately, and in a way that allows a student to understand what is happening.
Instructor candidates refine fundamental SCUBA skills to demonstration quality and learn how to position themselves so they can both teach and maintain control of the student group.
Candidates must also demonstrate the ability to recognize student errors, determine whether those errors create a safety concern, provide effective correction, and reassess the student's performance before allowing training to continue.
Risk Management & Professional Responsibility
Becoming an Instructor means accepting professional responsibility for students who may have little or no previous diving experience.
Training therefore places significant emphasis on risk management, standards, documentation, supervision, emergency planning, and the Instructor's responsibility to make conservative decisions when conditions, student needs, or other factors increase risk.
Candidates learn to use training-agency standards as the minimum framework for a course while continuing to evaluate whether conditions require smaller groups, additional assistance, modified activities, or postponement of training.
Instructor Development & Final Evaluation
Both NAUI and SDI separate Instructor development from final qualification or evaluation, although the agencies use different terminology and structures.
During the development portion, candidates receive instruction, practice teaching, refine skills, and receive coaching from qualified Instructor Trainers or Course Directors.
The final evaluation determines whether the candidate can independently demonstrate the knowledge, teaching ability, diving skills, judgment, and professionalism required for Instructor certification.
Exact evaluation procedures, staffing requirements, examinations, and timelines will be explained for the agency associated with the scheduled program.
Equipment for Instructor Training
Instructor candidates are professional divers and are expected to own, understand, and maintain a complete SCUBA equipment system appropriate for the diving environments in which training is conducted.
Equipment should allow the candidate to comfortably demonstrate skills, supervise students, manage emergencies, and function effectively as part of an instructional team.
Your Instructor Trainer or Course Director will review equipment requirements before the program and identify any additional instructional or professional equipment that will be needed.
Schedule
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Frequently asked questions
Will my Instructor certification be NAUI or SDI?
Underwater World can conduct Instructor development through either NAUI or SDI.
The agency associated with each scheduled program will be clearly identified before registration.
Although the agencies structure Instructor development and evaluation differently, both require candidates to demonstrate professional-level teaching ability, diving knowledge, skill proficiency, judgment, rescue ability, and student control.
What are the prerequisites?
Instructor candidates must be at least 18 years old and hold a qualifying professional leadership certification such as Divemaster, Assistant Instructor, or an accepted equivalent.
Candidates should also expect to need:
- At least six months of diving experience
- Extensive and varied logged-dive experience
- Current diving first aid, CPR, and emergency oxygen qualifications
- Professional-level rescue ability
- Medical approval for professional dive training
- Complete personal SCUBA equipment
- Agency-specific prerequisite certifications
NAUI and SDI have some different prerequisite certifications and enrollment requirements. Underwater World will review your professional credentials and diving history before confirming enrollment.
How many logged dives do I need?
Candidates should expect to have at least 100 logged dives before Instructor certification.
Entry requirements differ by agency. Some Instructor-development pathways allow candidates to begin portions of training before reaching the final 100-dive requirement.
Logged dives should represent meaningful experience across different environments, depths, conditions, and diving activities. Instructor readiness is not determined by a number alone.
Do I have to be a Divemaster first?
Instructor candidates must hold an accepted leadership-level prerequisite before entering the Instructor pathway.
For most candidates, this means Divemaster. Assistant Instructor or equivalent professional ratings may also satisfy the requirement depending on the certification agency.
If you currently hold a professional rating from another recognized agency, contact Underwater World so we can determine how your existing training applies.
Can I train through a different agency than my Divemaster certification?
Potentially, yes.
Both NAUI and SDI recognize equivalent professional training from other recognized agencies, subject to their current standards and the review of the Instructor Trainer or Course Director.
We will review your certifications and experience before enrollment and identify any additional prerequisites that must be completed.
How long does Instructor training take?
Instructor training is one of the most comprehensive programs in recreational SCUBA education and should not be viewed as a quick certification course.
Candidates should plan for approximately 100 hours or more of academic, practical, teaching, preparation, and evaluation work.
The program may be conducted intensively or spread across a longer internship-style schedule depending on the agency, Instructor staff, candidate experience, and course format.
What can I teach after becoming an Instructor?
An active-status SCUBA Instructor may independently teach and certify students in the courses and programs authorized by their certification agency and current Instructor ratings.
This normally includes entry-level SCUBA training and a range of continuing-education programs. Certain specialties, technical courses, professional-level programs, or other advanced programs may require additional Instructor qualifications or experience.
Does Instructor certification automatically let me teach?
Instructor certification establishes your professional teaching qualification, but active teaching status also depends on meeting the current membership, insurance, renewal, and authorization requirements of your certification agency.
Underwater World will review professional-status expectations throughout the Instructor program so candidates understand what is required after certification.
When is the next Instructor program?
The next Underwater World Instructor program has not yet been released.
Join our Instructor Interest List and we'll contact you when the next program's dates, certification agency, pricing, prerequisites, and registration information become available.