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Information about Professional Development

Professional development often refers to skills required for maintaining a specific career path or to general skills offered through continuing education, including the more general skills area of personal development. It can be seen as training to keep current with changing technology and practices in a profession or in the concept of lifelong learning. Developing and implementing a program of professional development is often a function of the human resources or organization development department of a large corporation or institution.

Overview

In a broad sense professional development may include formal types of vocational education, typically post-secondary or polytechnical training leading to qualification or a credential required to get or retain employment. Informal or individualized programs of professional development may also include the concept of personal coaching.

Professional development on the job may develop or enhance process skills, sometimes referred to as leadership skills, as well as task skills. Some examples for process skills are 'effectiveness skills', 'team functioning skills', and 'systems thinking skills'. Some examples of task skills are computer software applications, customer service skills and safety training.

Examples of skills relevant to a current occupation are leadership training for managers and training for specific techniques or equipment for educators, technicians, metal workers, medical practitioners and engineers. For some occupations there is a provision for accreditation tied to "continuing professional education" and proving competence regulated by a professional body.

Specific Professional Development requirements in the United States

In the United States, many states have professional development requirements for school teachers pre-kindergarten through grade 12. For example, in New Jersey, state regulations mandate that all active teachers and educational services personnel in New Jersey complete 100 hours of professional development every five years, consistent with the New Jersey Professional Development Standards. In the state of Florida, instructional personnel must earn 120 inservice hours or 2 college courses every 5 years in each area of certification.

Professional development standards are becoming a legislated mandate in a number of states in the USA. In the state of Florida, each district is reviewed every three years to ensure that professional development meets standards in the areas of planning, delivery, follow-up and evaluation.

See also

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worldwide view.


Continuing education is an all encompassing term within a broad spectrum of post-secondary learning activities and programs. Recognized forms of post-secondary learning activities within the domain include; degree credit courses by
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For the sense of a legal doctrine, see .


The term self-help or self-improvement can refer to any case or practice whereby an individual or a group attempts self-guided improvement[1]
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Lifelong learning is the concept that "It's never too soon or too late for learning", a philosophy that has taken root in a whole host of different organisations. Lifelong learning is attitudinal; that one can and should be open to new ideas, decisions, skills or behaviors.
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Human resources is a term in which many organizations describe the combination of traditionally administrative personnel functions with performance management, employee relations and resource planning. The field draws upon concepts developed in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
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Vocational education (or Vocational Education and Training (VET), also called Career and Technical Education (CTE)) prepares learners for careers that are based in manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic and totally related to a specific trade,
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Higher education is education provided by universities, vocational universities (community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and technical colleges, etc.) and other collegial institutions that award academic degrees, such as career colleges.
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Institute of technology, and polytechnic, are designations employed in a wide range of learning institutions awarding different types of degrees and operating often at variable levels of the educational system.
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For the record label, see .
A credential is an attestation of qualification, competence, or authority issued to an individual by a third party with a relevant de jure or de facto authority or assumed competence to do so.
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coach is a person who supports people (clients) to achieve their goals, with goal setting, encouragement and questions. Unlike a counselor or mentor, a coach rarely offers advice.
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profession is an occupation, vocation or career where specialized knowledge of a subject, field, or science is applied.[1] It is usually applied to occupations that involve prolonged academic training and a formal qualification.
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technician is generally someone in a technological field who has a relatively practical understanding of the general theoretical principles of that field, e.g., as compared to an engineer in that field.
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physician applies to a person who practices some type of medicine. Such medical practitioners are concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury, through both an area of knowledge
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engineer is someone who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering.[1] Engineers use technology, mathematics, and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.
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Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure that he/she is qualified to perform a job or task.
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Competence is the ability to perform some task. Incompetence is its opposite.
  • Competence (biology), the ability of a cell to take up DNA
  • Competence (human resources), a standardized requirement for an individual to properly perform a specific job

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Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of skilled crafts practitioners, which is still popular in some countries. Apprentices (or in early modern usage "prentices") build their careers from apprenticeships.
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A core competency is something that a firm can do well and that meets the following three conditions specified by Hamel and Prahalad (1990):
  1. It provides customer benefits
  2. It is hard for competitors to imitate
  3. It can be leveraged widely to many products and markets.

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In psychometrics, applied linguistics and education, competency evaluation is a means for teachers to determine the ability of their students in other ways besides the standardized test.

Usually this includes portfolio assessment.
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Induction training is a type of training given as an initial preparation upon taking up a post. Its goal is to help new employees reach the level of performance expected from an experienced worker.
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In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcumus and, in his old age, a friend of Odysseus. When Odysseus left for the Trojan War he placed Mentor in charge of his son, Telemachus, and of his palace.
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Kassing (1998) defines organizational dissent as the “expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions about organizational practices and policies”. Since dissent involves disagreement it can lead to conflict, which if not resolved, can lead to violence and struggle.
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profession is an occupation, vocation or career where specialized knowledge of a subject, field, or science is applied.[1] It is usually applied to occupations that involve prolonged academic training and a formal qualification.
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Vocational education (or Vocational Education and Training (VET), also called Career and Technical Education (CTE)) prepares learners for careers that are based in manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic and totally related to a specific trade,
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In organizational development, the related field of training and development (T & D) deals with the design and delivery of learning to improve performance, skills, or knowledge within organizations.
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The Age of the Learner

Learning and Development can be described as interventions and activities that are intended to improve the knowledge and skills in organisations which increasingly focus on the learner.
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