How to Run a Certification Maintenance Clinic

Overview

The instructor professional development (PD) clinic allows active instructors to maintain certification. PD clinics will be specific for the particular stream they are addressing.

The principal focus of PD clinics is the enrichment of instructor skills and to ensure instructors are using the current best practices. In the event that a clinic participant’s teaching and/or paddling skills are below the current standard, the instructor trainer will provide the participant with a detailed plan to bring their skills up to the standard and one year in which to meet the standard.

Clinic Purpose

The clinic purpose is to:

• provide an opportunity for active instructors to maintain instructor status,
• introduce new program changes and present innovative teaching strategies and ideas,
• review teaching elements with respect to benchmarks, evaluation and assessment,
• provide the opportunity for instructors to improve paddling technique and teaching ability, and
• identify instructors with paddling technique or teaching skills require improvement.

Important Notes

All clinic instructors must be certified instructor trainers at the level of the corresponding instructor course.

All instructors and clinic participants must be paid-up instructors with Paddle Canada and the clinic must be registered with Paddle Canada.

The clinic course length is one day (6-8 hours) except for the Camping Basics instructor certification maintenance clinic which is 3-4 hours.

A minimum of 60% of the clinic time must be spent on the water.

Certification maintenance clinics must be conducted in the water conditions required for the corresponding instructor course(s).

Instructor to student ratio is 1.5 times the ratio of the corresponding instructor course. For example, an instructor course with a ratio of 1:6 allows a corresponding certification maintenance clinic ratio of 1:9.

Possible Clinic Topics

There are a wide variety of possible topics to cover during the day which could include:

• course administration and risk assessment/management,
• stroke/brace skill development with individual coaching,
• self-rescue and assisted rescue: review required skills and introduce new techniques/theory,
• tricks and tips for teaching theory topics such as weather and navigation,
• practical benchmarks and expected key outcomes,
• assessment strategies,
• assessment of clinic participants as required, or
• round-table discussion of current paddling issues effecting the local paddling community.

Professional Development Clinic Schedule

Below is a very general sample schedule to give an idea of how a single-day certification maintenance clinic could be offered.

9:00 am – 9:30 am | Registration, paperwork, meet and greet, overview of the day.

9:30 am – 11:00 am | Theory clinic. Possible topics could include: Updated teaching theory/techniques, new program updates, course administration update and reminders about insurance coverage.

11:00 am – 12:30 pm | Personal skill development or skills polishing.

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm | Lunch

1:30 pm – 4:00 pm | Strokes and skills review including a review of benchmarks, updated teaching or assessment techniques and/or tips and tricks.

4:30 pm – 5:00 pm | Course review, student feedback and wrap-up.