Create Your Individual Personal Development Plan | Tips and Tools

Q1. Develop an individual personal development plan(IPD).

What is an IDP? A written plan that outlines what career goals I want to accomplish and what steps I can take to meet those goals. A tool you can use to identify, organize and plan my career. A tool for creating a personalized plan that best reflects my career aspirations, whether I want to plan for professional development, promotional opportunities or retirement in the next few years.

Why have an IDP To focus my professional efforts and identify individual work goals. To use as a communication, development and/or planning tool. To assist in obtaining resources, (e.g., scholarships, fee assistance or training funds); some departments request an IDP as part of their professional development program. To serve as your career action plan for skill building, professional development and career management.

Identify and write down your goals One possibility is that you can use the IDP to jump start your goal setting. If you are not sure what your career goals are then you might try the following

some of the ways I may use the internet to aid our teaching

Contacting Tutors Email us any questions regarding your studies, and we will respond when we next check our email (usually daily).

Sending Assignments Any typed or written assignments can be sent to us by email. This saves the cost of postage, can be faster, and is perhaps more reliable than the postal system sometimes is. Photos or drawings may be sent over the internet if you have access to a scanner. Some assignment work (e.g. samples of things you made) may still need to be sent via the post (or a courier).

Communicating with Other teachers Find other teachers living in our locality. Liaise with them, share information, discuss your projects and assignments over the net.

Research for Assignments Search information for any research work via the internet. Email the school for suggestions about where and how to search for specific information and contacts over the net. Use an internet search engine to find addresses and phone numbers of contacts you can visit to undertake practical or research tasks in your studies.

Accessing the School's Database When appropriate, we can download files from our extensive database, and email them to you. The school has a database which includes course notes If a student requests more information on something they are studying, it is very likely that we will be able to quickly email you something from the database.

Make Valuable Contacts Contact people and organizations in our area of study. Develop relationships which may be useful in our future work.

Online Training Download course notes, perform self tests and chat with tutors and students. Our online training system is state of the art, developed by our own computer programmers to be robust, reliable and effective. Because we created the system, we control it unlike most universities and colleges, that use off the shelf course delivery systems. Our system has been built specifically to fit with our courses, and our courses, written by our staff to fit with the course delivery system.

Resources What resources do you need to complete my goals? Often a resource may be as simple as getting release time to take a course. However, other resources you may need include: funds to pay for outside training, education, memberships, conferences; coverage for your duties; temporarily adjusting your work schedule; getting support from your supervisor or support network.

Time Schedule Write down the date you plan to start working on this goal and the date you plan to finish, for example, if you are taking a one-day workshop, then just put down the day of the workshop in both columns. If you are taking the Developing As A Supervisor certificate series, write down the day of the first class in the start row and the day of the last class in the finish row. Filling out IDP Form

Completion Check off and date your progress as each specific step is completed. Congratulations!

Q2. Professional development learning goals.

What is a professional development? Professional development is the skills and knowledge an employee gains to optimize her personal development and job growth. It includes learning opportunities, such as college degrees and coursework, or attending conferences or training sessions. This development is an extensive and collaborative process; upon completion, an evaluation of progress is usually performed. Many different professionals engage in such learning opportunities, including teachers, lawyers, healthcare professionals, and engineers.

How do I Choose the Best Professional Development for Teachers? The best professional development for teachers meets certification requirements, is relevant, provides opportunities for discussion and can be completed outside school hours. People who become teachers typically are dedicated to learning and have made a lifelong commitment to education. Select a program that is relevant to teaching. This can include training that is focused on a particular subject matter or further information on education theory and approaches.

Professional development goals Professional development goals vary depending on the field a person works in, but usually fall into three broad areas. Job-specific goals have to do with tasks that are part of an employee's job responsibilities. Educational goals are about gaining advanced knowledge in a subject.

A goal to improve proficiency in a broad area such as project management, which includes skills in time management, planning, and sometimes personnel coordination, would be a skill-set goal. Such goals are often easier to achieve if they are broken down into smaller steps.

Continuing professional development(CPD) In some fields, professional development is required and has specific parameters that must be met. Teachers in many districts are required to have professional development plans, for example, and continuing professional development (CPD) or continuing professional education (CPE) is usually required to maintain a professional license in fields such as medicine, nursing, and law. www.acsedu.com/learning/studying-on-the-internet.aspx