Avalanche Institute - Avalanche Course FAQs
1. How many hours of instruction are included in the online course(s)?The concept of "hours of instruction" is outdated with the advent of online education. Our courses are based on content and not on hours. Some students will take longer than others, and students may take more time on certain topics that they either find harder to grasp or enjoy enough to pursue in depth.
It is extremely unlikely that a traditional course with 24 hours of instruction, class and field combined, could cover all of the material in the online course. After field time, travel time, gearing up time, meals and breaks, etc the amount of classroom time is severely limited. Many students arrive tired from their work week, and most students have trouble paying attention in the classroom after being in the field. Compromises are always made, and even instructors using the same materials end up offering differing courses as a result.
2. What is the student-to-instructor ratio?Like "hours of instruction" this is an obsolete question for an online program. You can work at your own pace, the number of other students enrolled or the number of students currently online in the course or in your module is not very important. In fact, more is better since the course has many opportunities for interaction.
The ratio on field days depends on how you meet that requirement, but field sessions offered by AlpenPro will never have more than six students per instructor.
3. Won't I learn more in a person-to-person (traditional) course?In our experience, no. The online courses still offer person-to-person interaction, it's just not face-to-face for a well defined but short period of time. These online modules have been developed on the basis of a learning progression. The current module(s) must be mastered in order to progress to new material. The material has been chosen, developed, and reviewed by professionals. Students are able to ask questions, share ideas and observations, and interact in other ways throughout the course.
The primary problem and limitation with a traditional format is the inherent limitation and trade-off when it comes to time and money. The current standard is 24 hours, much of which is supposed to be field time. This is usually crammed into a long weekend or three consecutive days. If you assume the 24 hours is truly the instructional time and add on travel time to and from field sites, time to gear up and "gear down", and time for meals and breaks you can only conclude that three days are inherently rushed, and it is often an inadequate amount of time.
The online approach allows students to work at their own pace, evaluate their own progress, review material if they need to or wish to, and to adapt the learning to their own learning style and their own schedule.
4. Who are these courses intended for?These are recreational courses. (Unless specifically described as otherwise in the case of advanced or specialized topics.) Our online programs are not designed to train guides or other professionals, although certain advanced topics may be of interest or beneficial to these people.
The Level 1 course is intended for students with no previous avalanche education. The modules and courses are built on the idea of a learning progression - they build on each other. Reading books and/or skiing for some number of years does not constitute formal education, even if it does provide valuable experience. We have found in the past that students with impressive experiential backgrounds but no formal education who have skipped Level 1 have not learned what they need to during advanced training. It is frustrating to see somebody who knows all kinds of technical material from the Avalanche Handbook ski back to the trailhead at the end of class and break basic safe travel protocols.
One of our first students, during the "beta" phase, had experience on 8000 meter peaks, instruction from guides in the Alps, and had read many of the books available. He gave this course excellent reviews, probably even better than our other early students without such a background.
So this program is intended for those that want to start at the beginning and progress over time, for their own benefit and interest.
Certain advanced modules may be an exception to the above. In this case the course description will be clear about the intended audience and the background needed. We have an overview course on identifying and analyzing avalanche terrain and maximum runouts which is targeted at planners, civil engineers, and others involved with locating or building things in avalanche zones. A similar but more technical course will provide an overview of avalanche dynamics and physical models used in engineering - something where the prerequisite is not recreational but an adequate background in engineering or physical science.
5. Who are these courses not intended for?There are at least two types of students that our online program is not intended for, both of which are more typical in Level 2 courses.
The first are students that want to skip the basics and go directly to advanced topics, or to start the Level 1 course in the middle somewhere. We have never found this to be a good idea, and it has always been problematic when it occurred. No matter how great somebody makes their background sound there is no way to know if they've really covered the basics. In some cases these basics may not be immediately necessary for the more advanced material, but having students claim they took an advanced course and then fail to demonstrate basic skills from a Level 1 course does not reflect well on any program. In our online program advanced topics will require material from their prerequisites. We want to be able to offer this advanced material knowing that all students are prepared for it.
The second type of student we are not targeting are those that want to "tick off" some requirement. Like the student from a major guide concession who took a Level 2 class and spent much of the time doing his school homework. First, he felt that he knew more than he did just by virtue of being a guide (or being anointed as such by his employer). Second, it was required or helpful for his career to say he took it. Students who want to take a course just to be able to meet some requirement will probably find it easier to take a weekend course with no assessments or true learning progression and be done with it.
Actually there is a third category as well, touched upon in previous answers here. Which is the student aspiring to be a professional guide, avalanche technician, etc. We have designed most of our program for a recreational audience. Most aspiring guides take a course using the AIARE curriculum. Based on what we know of their philosophy and approach we believe the Level 1 material is comparable, although we are able to cover more material due to the lack of a time constraint. Some of our Level 1 material appears to overlap with aspects of the AIARE Level 2. Both programs emphasize fundamentals important to everyone in the backcountry. The AIARE Level 2 course spends a lot of time on properly observing and recording data, which are important skills for guides. Their program is designed by and for guides beyond Level 1, and we would recommend aspiring professionals consider that program despite the cost in time and money. Consider it an investment in your career. Our advanced modules may be interesting and helpful to professionals in some cases, but we do not offer anything emphasizing data observing and recording.
6. What is the balance between applied material and technical/theoretical material?The emphasis of our Level 1 course is overwhelmingly applied. We focus on observations, we cover all decision making frameworks we are aware of, and we put a lot of weight on planning a safe trip to begin with. However, without the time constraints that come with a three day schedule we are able to go a bit further. There is enough technical material to help students understand why certain things are true and why snow behaves the way it does. We don't merely tell you that convex rollovers are common trigger points, we explain why based on some of the theory leading up to that. In our Snowpack 2 module we cover the physics behind metamorphism, or changes within the snowpack.
We also include some of this material which could be considered technical in order to prepare students for learning more later. If an advanced module lists Snowpack 2 as a prerequisite you will be expected to be familiar with metamorphism to the extent it was covered there.
While we include some technical material for these reasons it is presented conceptually, and most people should be able to understand it without difficulty. The assessments on anything technical stick to the basic ideas and should not present any problems for a student who has just completed the material. One recurring theme in course feedback so far has been the very successful presentation of technical concepts in a clear and comprehensible manner.
7. Does your course cover decision-making?Yes. There is an entire module dedicated to the topic, and it is one of the longer ones. Our decision making module reviews all of the frameworks/tools/paradigms that have been "kicked around" in recent years. The background of each one, its advantages, and its disadvantages, are covered. As far as we know this is unprecedented, most courses cover the latest "fad". This topic is a great example of how we benefit from not having the time constraints most courses do - it would be impossible to cover decision making this comprehensively in a 3 day course packed with so many other things.
8. Why did [so-and-so] tell me [this or that]?It is inevitable that a variety of people will be critical of this online approach. Many were critical of the website avalanche-center.org (csac.org) when it began. Some of them still haven't gotten over it. Those that were critical of the csac.org site didn't really know what the internet was when the project began. They were tied to their old ways and saw anything so radically new as threatening.
We fully anticipate a similar reaction from similar people to an online course. This is something new and different that they do not understand or appreciate. To gain an understanding and appreciation would require an investment of time these people do not care to make. Furthermore, many of them have vested economic or political interests in the status quo.
In anticipation of this kind of reaction we have taken special care in developing and preparing the course. It has been tested in a pilot program during the 2007-08 season, and this resulted in a great deal of useful feedback from students. Their general reaction was positive, across the board, but they took time to offer some specific advice and criticism that has been incorporated into the final product. We also learned a surprising amount about the way in which students learn from the pilot program, something which we have not experienced in the traditional classes with their fast pace. Finally, there have been reviews by professionals of particular modules within their area of expertise as well as the overall course and approach.
Most criticism is likely to come from people unfamiliar with online education, unfamiliar with this particular program, and generally behind the curve when it comes to the "internets". Their criticism will inevitably be vague, reflecting this. Before taking any of it too seriously consider whether their points reflect any familiarity with specifics, and whether or not they have economic or political self-interests at heart.
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