Adaptive Education & Certification Program
Your Adaptive Committee shares a passion for teaching snowsports to individuals with disabilities. The Committee is comprised of adaptive snowboard members, adaptive alpine members, program directors, volunteer instructors, staff trainers, and all levels of certifications. If you want to get involved with our great sport and help shape the future of our profession, please contact Bill Bowness (bill@disabledsports.net). Following is a sampling of the projects our committee is currently working on for 2014-15:
- Developing an online test for all three levels of certification as is currently being offered by Alpine and Snowboard disciplines.
- Working on a process for a partial pass at level three. Currently, candidates that take the level 3 certification must pass all six disciplines. If the candidate is weak in one or more of the exam areas, he must retake the entire exam. Seems like a misuse of resources (time and money) to retake the areas where the candidate is solid.
- Developing a video library of adaptive skiers that can be used to administer a standardized movement analysis assessment. Currently, most examiners do MA on-hill. Although this is more realistic, it can be challenging for the examiner and candidate alike to provide consistent MA experiences for all candidates.
An ongoing task is developing an examiner standard for each level of exam. We have excellent exam standards (PSIA Adaptive Alpine Certification Standards; AASI Adaptive Snowboard Certification Standards) that describe in detail what the candidates need to understand but at times there may be minor inconsistencies between examiners as to the level of competency candidates must have at each level. We believe that our examiners do a fantastic job of fairly assessing our candidates but we are striving to make this assessment more concrete. This will be an ongoing task that will be modified each year to keep pace with current trends in snowsports.
