Continuing Professional Development Is A Way
Continuing Professional Development is a way to manage your own learning and professional development by setting objectives for yourself and then measuring and recording your progress in order to achieve your targets. CPD isn’t a fixed process - it needs adapting from person to person. However, this means that regardless what your level of skill and expertise is it will help you to reach your career goals more efficiently.
The process for CPD should be based on reflection on your own experience while setting targets for yourself and then evaluating the outcomes after a learning process is complete. For example a good way to start your CPD will be to look back at the last half year to a year and identify what you have learned during that time and then set yourself a development plan for the next year based on the previous progress. Reflecting on your past and then planning your future will help you make your development’s tracking and evaluation easier.
Useful techniques to enhance learning process are various. You could keep a diary/blog where you could reflect on your discoveries as you learn, bullet points to remind you the main ideas or simply taking notes as you go along. The main idea is to have something that will show your continuous work in developing your skills and also serve as a future reminder when the questions arise in a day-to-day work. Activities that make the biggest impact on your role at work should be the ones you focus on the most as evidence for a CPD record. However, anything that proves your self-development work and shows the progress you have made will count. In other words you need to provide proof that you have reflected on your learning needs, planed how you would meet them and then carried out your learning plan. As part of your learning process your reflection on your own learning process is essential. Keeping a good record of things as you go along would help you to provide these proofs.
Why is CPD important for individuals?
The process for CPD should be based on reflection on your own experience while setting targets for yourself and then evaluating the outcomes after a learning process is complete. For example a good way to start your CPD will be to look back at the last half year to a year and identify what you have learned during that time and then set yourself a development plan for the next year based on the previous progress. Reflecting on your past and then planning your future will help you make your development’s tracking and evaluation easier.
Useful techniques to enhance learning process are various. You could keep a diary/blog where you could reflect on your discoveries as you learn, bullet points to remind you the main ideas or simply taking notes as you go along. The main idea is to have something that will show your continuous work in developing your skills and also serve as a future reminder when the questions arise in a day-to-day work. Activities that make the biggest impact on your role at work should be the ones you focus on the most as evidence for a CPD record. However, anything that proves your self-development work and shows the progress you have made will count. In other words you need to provide proof that you have reflected on your learning needs, planed how you would meet them and then carried out your learning plan. As part of your learning process your reflection on your own learning process is essential. Keeping a good record of things as you go along would help you to provide these proofs.
Why is CPD important for individuals?