Designing High-Quality Professional Development: Preparing for Learning

Domains

Resources

Preparation allows the adult learner to anticipate what will occur and to plan their engagement in the session. Assigning activities to complete before a session allows the learner to focus attention and activate prior knowledge. Preparation also allows presenters to establish their expertise and motivate leaners to engage in the professional development.

The presenter should:

Create an agenda and learning targets/objectives for dissemination prior to the session so that participants know what they will learn and how they will learn it as well as when start, end, and break times will be.
Provide participants an assignment to complete prior to the session so that they can reflect on their prior knowledge about the topic and prepare for the event.
Refer to the assignment above during the presentation (e.g., a discussion of how an article relates to participants’ context, new ideas they learned from the modules that they reviewed, ways in which the feedback they received from the pretest surprised them).
Share a personal story, related to participants’ context, that reflects the presenter’s history and expertise with the content.

To promote participants’ preparation, the local provider should:

Expand the learning targets/objectives in the agenda to include application beyond the session.
Introduce the session by explaining what participants will gain and how the local provider will provide follow-up support.

The HQPD Checklist indicators in the domain Preparing for Learning include:

1. Prior to the professional development, provides learning objectives addressing the critical training concepts.

Examples:

Learning objectives are provided in the event description on a registration website.

Participants are emailed learning objectives along with logistics for the training.

Learning objectives are included on an agenda sent to participants prior to the training.

2. Prepares participants to engage in the content by assigning activities in advance.

Examples:

Participants are asked to read a provided article and be prepared to discuss it during the training.

Participants complete a set of pretraining modules prior to attending the session; these ensure that all participants have a common base of knowledge.

Prior to the session, participants are asked to reflect on and rate their current practice using a rubric based on key concepts that will be addressed during the training.

Participants complete a pretest that prompts them to reflect on the knowledge and skills they hope to gain.

Participants are asked to complete a pretest that provides links to resources to expand their background knowledge.

3. Follows an agenda that outlines the flow of the content and includes beginning times, ending times, and key breaks.

Examples:

The presenter follows an agenda displayed in the presentation that includes topics to be addressed related to learning objectives and a timeline of topics and breaks.

A detailed agenda is provided on the registration website, and adjustments are made and communicated throughout the day to better meet participants’ learning needs.

The agenda, with topics to be addressed and break times, is included in the packet of materials.

The registration for a series of online webinars includes a list of topics to be covered across the series and subtopics to be addressed during each of the four one-hour sessions.

4. Establishes credibility by communicating content expertise and/or experience.

Examples:

The presenter’s background and expertise are summarized on the registration website.

The presenter describes how they became interested in the topic and how it changed their practice and led to improved outcomes.

The event organizer’s introduction includes a description of the presenter’s expertise related to the content.