Introduction
Encouraging a positive learning culture at work is essential for a happy, healthy workplace. That is why continuous professional development (CPD) is crucial. Organizations that embrace a CPD culture at the organizational level foster growth, reflection, commitment, and dedication.
What is Continuous Professional Development (CPD)?
Continuous professional development, or CPD for short, refers to the ability of professionals to retain and evolve their skills, their understanding of those skills, and associated knowledge and experience by proactively tracking, documenting, and reflecting on activities that improve their performance. One of the best methods to ensure continuous professional development is designing a strategy or structure so that learning does not take place haphazardly but follows a rather shallow learning curve.
What is CDP for Teachers?
CPD for teachers refers to teachers engaging in constant self-reflection on their academic mastery, professional development, administrative leadership, and research. This, together with the development of skills and competencies, would enable today's teacher to determine the pace and make one's position grounded and future ready. Continuous professional development of teachers is essential for future teachers to achieve their long-term goals.
Here are some of the things that are important in the realm of continuous professional development of teachers:
- The ability to identify one's strengths and weaknesses
- Effective student engagement
- Fostering self-directed learning and curiosity
- Deeper learning capacity
- Creative thinking
- Mindfulness for self-care
- Executing forward integration strategies with industry and higher educational institutions by engaging in dialogue sessions with university faculty members after completing their schooling
While acting as an example or role model for others, a strong network, competencies in planning and predicting, parent-friendliness, and community connections would assist them in being effective teachers. The "how" aspect of the teaching profession, particularly in the K-12 segment, is invisible and undefined.
To construct a strong, sustainable, and ongoing professional development program for teachers, the school administration must engage in developing the necessary futuristic human resources inside the school system.
If we become believers in machines, materials, land, buildings, and modern infrastructure rather than giving the finest real possibilities for learners and wholesome growth for teachers, we are deviating directly from the core of education.
What is the Continuous Professional Development Cycle?
The CPD cycle is concerned with what employees do during the CPD reflection process as opposed to when they undertake it. The following are the six essential stages of the ongoing professional development cycle:
- Planning entails determining where progress can be accomplished.
- Participating in activities that promote development is referred to as action.
- Review - Looking back to assess what was learned
- Incorporating learning into daily tasks
- Transparency entails sharing what has been learned to assist others.
- Reflection entails assessing the impact of one's actions.
It's natural to think of a CPD cycle as a set period, such as a year. But that's not the best way to go about it, even if it appears to be entirely natural. This is because most organizations require CPD hours, such as those that govern nurses, Chartered Surveyors, and Chartered Accountants - or any of the professional bodies that require qualified individuals to complete a certain number of hours each review and assessment cycle.
Types of CPD
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is a valuable learning tool that professionals from various industries can use to improve their skills and knowledge. The types of CPD vary based on the learning style used:
Active Learning / Structured CPD
Structured CPD often consists of interactive and participation-based research. Attending training classes, workshops, seminars, conferences, eLearning courses, or CPD-accredited events is frequently proactive. Teachers taking career-oriented tests can also benefit from CPD active learning; however, the study and review would be considered self-directed learning.
Passive Learning / Reflective CPD
Reflective CPD is defined as learning that has a structured format but no participant-based engagement, making it far more passive and one-directional than structured CPD. Watching training videos and tutorials, attending non-interactive lectures, industry briefings, podcasts, case studies, and industry updates are all examples of reflective CPD.
Self-Directed Learning / Informal CPD
Self-directed CPD encompasses any unsupervised and unstructured learning. This involves participation in online forums, as well as reading books, articles, and periodicals in print or online. You could also include industry-specific news or research into pertinent subjects. Self-directed CPD frequently lacks specific learning time periods, is informal, and learning outcomes vary by individual.
Different methods of CPD learning
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for CPD; nevertheless, a blended approach to learning that integrates a diverse range of CPD can improve knowledge retention and engagement.
Training Courses
The most common means of completing Continuing Professional Development is through a CPD training course, which can range in length from one day to many days or weeks. Training courses are either subject-specific or give skills in a certain field.
With Teachmint, management or experts can create training videos and share them with fellow teachers with features like live and online class recordings. With the help of this feature, teachers can conduct live classes and record the same so that it can be accessed later.
Seminars
A seminar is a form of brief training that lasts from a few hours to a day. CPD seminars allow attendees to hone in on a certain topic in depth. They are often conducted in groups of no more than 20 people. CPD seminars will often involve group work, activities, and interactive discussions to encourage individuals to contribute, which can lead to improved information retention.
Webinars
Webinars are virtual learning events that are attended by an online audience. A CPD webinar's major goal is often to educate and teach professionals on fresh and relevant material shortly and succinctly.
CPD webinars can allow attendees to interact and participate by asking questions of the hosts, completing polls or surveys, and sharing documents. CPD webinars are important since they do not necessitate attendance at an in-person event and thus allow for broader, often international, participation.
Another feature of Teachmint that would be helpful while conducting webinars is the online whiteboard. With this, teachers can collaborate to share their knowledge. These illustrations or notes written on the whiteboard can be saved for future reference. These can also be shared conveniently.
Conclusion
If you provide opportunities and rewards, it is simple to inspire people to take responsibility for their ongoing learning and professional growth. Schools may consider employing CPD training providers to teach certain skills to their employees. These could range from an hour or two to a full training program lasting several weeks. As part of formal learning and development (L&D) efforts, educational institutions can also construct valuable staff training programs or invest in upskilling training. All of these can be used to fulfill CPD requirements.
Suggested Read - NEP 2020 | National Education Policy 2020
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