Understanding Professional Development for Educators

Abstract

Professional development refers to different educational experiences related to an individual's work. Doctors, lawyers, educators, accountants, engineers, businessmen and people in a wide variety of professions participate in professional development to learn and apply new knowledge and skills that will improve their performance on the job. For teachers and leaders to be as effective as possible, they continually need to expand their knowledge and skills. Professional development is the only strategy institution systems have to strengthen educators' performance levels and also the only way educators can learn so that they are able to better their performance and raise student achievement. Many misunderstandings exist about professional development. Through in depth literature review and deep observation, this paper is aims to answer fundamental questions about professional development for educators so as to inform and engage more people in understanding that strengthening the quality of professional development for educators is crucial for making professional development effective.