Professional Development Through Continuing Education

Professional Development Through Continuing Education The difference between a job, an occupation and a career is considerable, with only the latter of these categories suggesting the need for advancement, the intention to achieve a personal progress and the expectation to engage a path of direct professional evolution. Thus a career begins during one's education, where the ambition to build a body of knowledge and experience begins to take practical form.

However, one should engage this experience with the understanding that one's professional education is never done, but that one must always remain engaged to a selected field and to a path of individual growth. Continuing professional education is distinguished not as much by the age of the individuals engaged in the educational process but by their experience. The differences in instructional approach taken toward adult pupils will be based on the understanding that adults will have different motives, goals, interests and learning styles relative to traditional learners.

That is why the set of theoretical approaches and instructional models which permeate the discourse on adult education are distinct from those which are applied to traditional learning contexts. Indeed, where traditional learners are seen to be engaged in a continuous process in which learning is built upon sequentially, most theories in adult education focus on the need to reorient rigid thinking toward an absorptive perspective. Professional development education should ideally help the learner to remain always open to evolving realities within the profession or within a particular organization.

It is thus that continuing education may be said to serve the development of an organization's collective professional knowledge, keeping its members in touch with newly developing legal standards, providing them access to information on trends relating to globalization, creating a forum at which members can exchange ideas and offering support for achieving the highest possible levels of professional certification.

These interests underscore a premise concerning professional development in a larger sense, which denotes that it is not simply advancement that will be gained through a continued acquisition of knowledge but that, indeed, such development may be necessary to simply remain competitive and competent in one's field. This is underscored by the premise presented by Carter et al. (2007) which argues that technological innovations are doubling the knowledge economy in most fields every two or three years.

This means that professional demands and challenges are also shifting during this time, denoting that the professional who remains connected to the process of learning is one who is likely to experience advancement in his or her profession. (Carter et al., 3) Drawn from the report entitled Keys to College Studying, this notion offers the sentiment that one's future is likely to be considerably more open to opportunity if one continues to strive to be knowledgeable and to remain active in one's professional education.

Perhaps more than any force beside diligence, knowledge will impact one's success, translating into the capacity to make good decisions, to evade costly errors and to behave in a manner that is essentially ethical. This is why, according to Merriam's (2001) report, transformational educational strategies have emerged as among the preferred means of helping continuing learners through the process of professional educational engagement. Merriam remarks on the transition in conventional thinking which would move the discussion on professional education toward these transformational strategies.

Today, professional development education has attained a unique place in the discourse over learning philosophies and approaches. With respect to our consideration of transformative learning strategies, this is relevant because the needs of adult learners fall into their own distinct instructional and cognitive categories. One reason at the base of this distinction is the diversity of motives which inclines adults to seek education. Accordingly, Bash (2003) reported that adult learners age 25 years or older represent more than 47% of all students enrolled in higher education.

These professional learners continue in their education for a variety of reasons. Among some of the reasons noted by our research findings are the interest of keeping up with changing technology, a desire to change careers or advance in their current profession, and for intellectual stimulation to maintain physical and mental alertness. This significant population of our educational system has long been relegated to.