Ten Tips For Making The Most Of Your Professional Learning

Every year educators, leaders and managers in early childhood services create new goals and aspirations for personal and professional growth. Being successful in your professional learning goals, internal evaluations or strategic plans requires a commitment to professional learning to build your knowledge and skills for continuous improvement.

But where do you start?

1. Any professional learning that you choose to engage with will ideally be aligned with the goals you have created in your professional growth cycle, your internal evaluation investigations, or your wider strategic goals.

2. You will gain the most benefit from your professional learning if you watch or read (webinars, courses, blogs and articles), take some notes and reflect on what this new learning means for your practice.

3. If you are aiming for shifts in team practice, the best shot you have at this is to engage in the same professional learning together at the same time. This is one of the advantages of having a membership to Enspirement - everyone in your team can participate and learn together.

4. Arrange for all staff to watch the same webinar during non-contact or quiet times and then discuss the key learning as a team at a staff meeting. Or watch a webinar together as a team and then unpack the learning together.

5. The best outcomes from any professional learning come when new learning is discussed and unpacked with others in your team. Real growth in practice comes from the critical analysis of what has been happening, what has been learned, and what you will do next.

6. When your team discusses new learning, it is important that you follow this closely with measurable action plans. What, who, when!

7. Team leaders should meet 1:1 with teachers regularly to discuss what they have learned from webinars, courses and readings and what this means for their practice.

8. Invite two teachers to take the lead on one topic or area of practice: research, attend courses and webinars and then teach the rest of the team via team meetings and group discussion.

9. Provide a reading to all staff on the topic of priority and facilitate discussion about this at a staff meeting. Allocate 15 minutes for discussion.

10. Request all staff to keep records of their professional learning. Review and discuss this at appraisal and professional growth cycle meetings.

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