First Chair Podcast: Jeb Boyd and Dave Schuiling Discuss the New National Standards

The First Chair podcast catches up with PSIA-AASI National Team Head Coach, Jeb Boyd, and PSIA-AASI Director of Education, Dave Schuiling, about PSIA-AASI’s certification standards and the work the Education Leadership Council and the PSIA-AASI National Team are doing to update these standards.

Learn about PSIA-AASI’s journey to increase consolidation, consistency, and cooperation for certification programs and how the updated certification standards will result in a clearer, more consistent path to success for all PSIA-AASI members.

You can also a watch this video of Dave’s presentation on the new standards to the PSIA-AASI Board of Directors.

Here are some top takeaways from the podcast.

The Strategic Alignment Plan: The new certification standards are a key component of the Strategic Alignment Plan which will create greater consistency across all divisions and disciplines. Education leaders have been working to implement new standards since 2016, with a focus on creating a clearer path to success for PSIA-AASI members. The board’s approval of the new alpine and snowboard standards is a significant milestone.

Instructors and Examiners Will Benefit from the New Standards: Examiners work to be as consistent as possible in exams. The new standards will make it easier for candidates to train, and also for examiners to determine if the standards are achieved.

“Certification is about how any instructor can work toward a collective standard in the beginner zone, intermediate zone, and expert zone,” said Dave, who added that with the new standards PSIA-AASI will also assess people skills for the first time.

How the New Standards Will Go into Effect: Jeb said the alpine and snowboard standards will be implemented in 2021 and 2022. “Other than the people skills, we’re not talking about radically new and different standards. It’s more about consistency,” he said.

The implementation of the new standards will also include complementary training. “If we are going to assess someone to a certain aspect, we are going to need to train them,” said Jeb, adding that there will be a Performance Guide to educate snowsports school staff, directors, examiners, and instructors on the new standards.

“The Performance Guide will be a common playbook everyone will use to achieve the learning outcomes,” said Dave. “Everyone will be using the same tools to measure the assessment criteria with a common measurement scale. This creates greater consistency and full transparency to reach the standard.”