Promote Professional Development Essay Example for Free

Promote Professional Development Essay Principles * Professional development deepens and broadens knowledge of content. Knowledge of a common core of content—which we deï ¬ ne as including the â€Å"various ways of knowing† that are intrinsic to each discipline—allows us to communicate, to work together toward common ends, to function as a cohesive democratic society, and to ï ¬ nd shared ground on which to build tolerance for our differences. * Professional development provides a strong foundation in teaching. * Professional development develops an understanding of: 1. The most useful ways of representing ideas 2. The most powerful illustrations and analogies for representing a concept 3. It makes learning speciï ¬ c things in a content area easy or difï ¬ cult; 4. It bring kinds of questions that help to reveal and develop understanding 5. It is the most effective strategies to address the misconceptions that commonly arise with regard to particular content at particular developmental levels, given with speciï ¬ c background experiences and prior knowledge. see more:what are the components of a personal development plan * Professional development provides knowledge about the teaching and learning processes. 1. Creates and maintains appropriate, orderly teaching and learning environments 2. It brings any assessment issues and clears any misunderstanding. * Professional development contributes to measurable improvement in one’s achievement. * Professional development is intellectually engaging and addresses the complexity of one’s job role. * Professional development is job-embedded and site speciï ¬ c that helps in the day to day growth of one’s knowledge and skills. * Importance: It is a tool for self-management of your development. It can provide a framework to support your development in a number of different ways. Fundamentally, its a question of regularly setting yourself objectives for development and then charting your progress towards achieving them. Its about being clear where you are, where you want to be, how you plan to get there, and how this meets current and future business needs and it is about a continuing process of reflecting on your learning and your experience to maximise its value. There is an expectation that regulators will be life-long learners in order to keep their professional skills, knowledge and experience up to date in an ever changing legislative, social and economic environment, and to ensure positive development through the right experience, and by getting the most (in terms of learning) from that experience. As a professional, you have a responsibility to keep your skills and knowledge up to date. It helps many of us already to externally verify our accreditation. Reflective learning provides a positive opportunity to identify and achieve your own career objectives. Reflecting on past experience and planning for the future in this way makes your development more methodical, and helps you to assess, and get the most from your learning. Potential Barriers to professional development: * Time Time is a crucial factor in personal growth and development, and many individuals lack enough of it. Between work responsibilities, childcare issues and just trying to survive on a day-to-day basis, you may find yourself lacking the hours necessary to devote to your own goals. * Attitude A negative attitude is a major factor in this area. If you start out with the belief that positive development is unlikely to occur, then no matter how hard you work on it, your belief will sabotage any efforts you may make. * Family Family also can be a hindrance when it comes to personal growth. Often, individuals are entrenched with ideas from their families about how much someone can develop as a person, so they dont seek to move past these set levels. * Peers Peers also can complicate our efforts to improve ourselves. Peers often try to sabotage our goals, either consciously or unconsciously. They degrade our efforts toward growth because those efforts remind them of the growth they could be pursuing, but have chosen to forgo. * Motivation Lack of motivation can be an enormous barrier to personal development. Without motivation, you have little energy to accomplish tasks leading to growth. With the right amount of motivation, however, those tasks can seem easy, and even enjoyable, to accomplish. * Money Personal growth does not have to take a great deal of money to accomplish, but depending on your goals, a lack of it can stall your efforts. Materials to learn about new topics and ways of living often cost money, but they are an investment in you. * Failure to Plan Lack of proper planning and preparation can lead to haphazard attempts to fulfil goals a recipe for wasted energy and efforts. If you are trying to break a habit, start a new career or glean insights into your thought processes, be sure to have at least a rudimentary plan to reach these goals. * Distractions Distractions, whether in the form of minor demands or activities that offers immediate gratification, can be counted on to undermine your efforts toward personal growth. * Perseverance Finally, when trying to reach personal goals, we often forget that perseverance is a key. Dont expect to achieve your dreams overnight. Overcoming obstacles consistently is the only way to become the individual you want to be. Different sources and systems of support for professional development The following are the different sources and systems of support for professional development * Inductions given for new staff. These includes giving information regarding the policies and procedures, what the company expect from them, their rights, etc. (copy of 24 hour induction form attached) * Appraisals The Annual Staff Appraisal scheme is based on objective setting in all aspects of an individual’s job, based on the contributions that they make. The review period will cover the previous 12 calendar months * Development plans A Professional Development Plan (PDP) is a short planning document that examines an individual’s current CPD needs, looks at how these might be met and lists objectives for the future. It helps the individual to structure and focus one’s training needs and should address the following points: Where am I now? Where am I going? How am I going to get there? In producing a PDP, one should: Consider once current job and the skills they need to do it competently. What changes are likely to occur in the next few years? The individual should list both short and long-term ambitions. Be realistic about their ambitions and the time needed to achieve them. Think about the areas in which they will need to target the CPD to achieve their ambitions – be realistic and prioritise. A PDP is not a request for unlimited training. Their employer will be interested in the business case for their PDP. Look to the future; don’t restrict one’s self to thinking about current professional responsibilities. Should they strengthen existing skills or develop new ones? List their priorities for the next two years. These will form the basis for deciding what CPD opportunities to take up. It is important to remember that their priorities are not cast in stone; they may decide to change them in the future. They should review and update their PDP regularly to respond to changing needs, challenges and opportunities. * Shadowing – when an individual require more supervision to ensure the quality of their job and provide teaching how do we expect them to work. * in-house training – providing all the in house training will make an individual feel that they are valued and this help them to practice in a safe way. * Training organisations – using other training organisations helps build relationship outside and helps with building competence in dealing with other individual. * Mentoring is providing support and encouragement to individual to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be. * Supervisions is one of the most important drivers in ensuring positive outcomes * Reflective Practice Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. It is very useful for health professionals who want to carry on learning throughout their lives. The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and become a more proactive and qualified professional. Engaging in reflective practice should help to improve the quality of care you give and close the gap between theory and practice. The following examples of reflective practice which will provide some idea of the various methods one can choose from. Gibbs reflective cycle Gibbs reflective cycle is a process involving six steps: * Description What happened? * Feelings What did you think and feel about it? * Evaluation What were the positives and negatives? * Analysis What sense can you make of it? * Conclusion What else could you have done? * Action Plan What will you do next time? It is a cycle because the action you take in the final stage will feed back into the first stage, beginning the process again. Johns model for structured reflection This is a series of questions to help one think through what has happened. They can read the questions here This can be used as a guide for analysing a critical incident or for general reflection on experiences. John’s model supports the need for the learner to work with a supervisor throughout the experience. He also recommends that the student use a structured diary. He suggests the student should ‘look in on the situation’, which would include focusing on yourself and paying attention to your thoughts and emotions. He then advises to ‘look out of the situation’ and write a description of the situation around your thoughts and feelings, what you are trying to achieve, why you responded in the way you did, how others were feeling, did you act in the best way, ethical concepts etc Rolfe’s framework for reflective practice Rolfe uses three simple questions to reflect on a situation: What? so what? and now what? He considers the final question as the one that can make the greatest contribution to practice. * What is the problem? was my role? happened? were the consequences? * So what was going through my mind? should I have done? do I know about what happened now? * Now what do I need to do? broader issues have been raised? might happen now? Factors to consider when selecting opportunities and activities for keeping knowledge and practice up to date * Relevance -It has to be relevant to the job role. * Time The length of the activity should be consider/ or how long will it take for you to finish the training or course. Sometimes you can get bored and loose the motivation because it is dragging to your job role or to your other responsibilities. * Benefits – It has to benefit the company, yourself, other staff and most especially people receiving your service. * Benefits for you: 1. enhanced reputation and job satisfaction 2. increased confidence and self esteem 3. improved career prospects and employability 4. improved professional status 5. Development is a transferable skill. * Benefits for your other staff: 1. better quality training 2. up-to-date advice and information 3. training that employs new approaches and methods 4. training that better meets needs 5. Greater confidence in the training provided for your organisation. * Benefits to the people who receives service: 1. enhanced reputation more likely to be seen as credible and reliable and to become a trusted organisation in care 2. more influence from the MDT’s 3. Family and friend of the people who uses services can be good ally and so as the service user 4. A more exciting learning environment and opportunities to learn from each other. (MDT’s) * Benefits to the organisation: 1. staff who can do the job 2. more likely to achieve evolving organisational goals 3. managers can be confident that staff skill levels are compliant and up-to-date with requirements 4. improved employee engagement 5. enhanced external reputation * Refresher course to be available – This help you update if there is a refresher course available for some of the trainings you take. * Cost – cost of the training usually is an issue especially if the training budget should be distributed amongst staff. Check for charity organisations who provide courses and take the opportunity to take it as long as it is related to your job role * Availability – it is difficult when the training you like to do is not available straight away and you will need to wait for it to be available. This can be frustrating at times and hinders the development plan. Beyond these factors it is good to get a balance of learning across: * Maintenance and development needs What you need to keep refreshed and up-to-date against what will be new areas of learning for you. * Specialist subjects and training skills/knowledge If you train in a particular subject area you will need to maintain you technical abilities and knowledge, as well as developing your skills and knowledge as a trainer. * Performance requirements and personal aspirations As well as the learning you have to undertake for your job and professional requirements, you may also have personal aspirations or long terms plan you want to prepare for. * Different learning methods Even if you have a preferred learning style it is important to involve yourself in a range of different approaches. Challenge your preferences sometimes – maybe opting for a highly participative learning activity, even though you would normally choose to learn through researching or reading – and develop your other styles in doing so. Continuing professional development (CPD) is the action we take to maintain, update and grow the knowledge and skills required for our professional role. As the name suggests, it is an on-going commitment, lasting for as long as we remain within our profession. There are many reasons why we are motivated to learn new things. The fact that we are in this profession suggests that we are already enthusiastic learners. CPD requires us to focus a part of our learning specifically on areas that are related to our profession. One of the key features of CPD is that it has to be: SMARTSpecific – be clear about what you want to achieve; what is the actual result or outcome that you want?Measurable – how will you know that you have achieved? What will you see, hear and feel that will tell you that you have achieved?Achievable – the objectives in your plan should be realistic and achievable steps to take you closer to your overall ambitions.Relevant – your objectives should be steps to larger career and personal aspirations, not just random pieces of learning.Time-bound – each outcome should have an achievable end-date – ideally within the timescale of your CPD planning period.|