Professional development, also known as professional education, is learning that leads to or emphasizes education in a specific professional career field or builds practical job applicable skills emphasizing praxis in addition to the transferable skills and theoretical academic knowledge found in traditional liberal arts and pure sciences education. It is used to earn or maintain professional credentials such as professional certifications or academic degrees through formal coursework at institutions known as professional schools, or attending conferences and informal learning opportunities to strengthen or gain new skills.
Professional education has been described as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage. There is a variety of approaches to professional development or professional education, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, case study, capstone project, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.
Participants
A wide variety of people, such as teachers, military officers and non-commissioned officers, health care professionals, lawyers, accountants and engineers engage in professional development. Individuals may participate in professional development because of an interest in lifelong learning, a sense of moral obligation, to maintain and improve professional competence, to enhance career progression, to keep abreast of new technology and practices, or to comply with professional regulatory requirements. In the training of school staff in the United States, "[t]he need for professional development ... came to the forefront in the 1960s". Many American states have professional development requirements for school teachers. For example, Arkansas teachers must complete 60 hours of documented professional development activities annually. Professional development credits are named differently from state to state. For example, teachers in Indiana are required to earn 90 Continuing Renewal Units (CRUs) per year; in Massachusetts, teachers need 150 Professional Development Points (PDPs); and in Georgia, teachers must earn 10 Professional Learning Units (PLUs). American and Canadian nurses, as well as those in the United Kingdom, have to participate in formal and informal professional development (earning credit based on attendance of education that has been accredited by a regulatory agency) in order to maintain professional registration.
Professional school
A professional school is a constituent college, academic department, or university program that prepares students, through praxis, for careers in specific fields. Most professional schools are chiefly but not exclusively graduate school level institution, while in some cases universities at the undergraduate level, especially at research universities where research, graduate, and undergraduate faculty overlap and/or have close cooperation with each other, may have a professional development emphasis in their education programs.
Examples of this type of school include: architecture school, business school, divinity school, engineering school, journalism school, law school, library school, schools of education (normal school), public policy school, applied science programs, and social work school. The field of healthcare has many professional schools, including medical school, chiropractic school, dental school, pharmacy school, physician assistant school, physiotherapy school, podiatric medical school, public health school (professional degrees of public health), speech–language pathology school, occupational therapy school, nursing school, veterinary school and optometry school. Most professional schools confer professional degrees although not all degree programs at professional schools are considered professional degrees because, professional degrees, in addition to standard first-level academic accreditation requirements conferred by a regional accreditation body, have to go through secondary or tertiary institutional or program accreditation procedures specifically designated by professional associations of industry experts.