5.3 Professional Development Plan

What is a Professional development Plan?

As an early childhood educator, it is important that you have a Professional Development Plan (PDP). Your PDP is a personal document that outlines your goals for yourself as an early childhood educator. Your goals are going to be based on your interests and experiences in the field; your PDP may include specific types of workshops that you want to participate in, furthering your post-secondary education, volunteering, or working with community partners to improve the life of the children and the families that you work with, to name a few. You may want to include advice and suggestions from your director or colleagues if you are unsure where you want to start.

A PDP will outline your professional goals, and the steps you need to take to achieve those goals, and include a list of resources you will need, and timelines for achieving each goal. As you progress through the steps of your goals or your career path changes, your PDP should be adjusted to reflect where you are at and what you want to achieve. No two PDPs will be the same; two people may have the same goal however their plan for achieving that goal and when they want to achieve that goal will vary based on their support systems, their commitments to family or community, and other life events.

Creating a Professional Development PLAn

When creating goals for your PDP you want to use the SMART goal method you want your goals to be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. By using the smart method, you will break a large goal down into smaller pieces that are easier to achieve and help maintain your motivation as you work towards larger goals.

There are many formats that a PDP may take some may choose a formal PDP while others may choose a more informal method of writing down their SMART goals. The goals you set in your PDP do not all need to be significant long-term goals; it is important to have a variety of career goals that fall into the short-term (can be completed within one year) or long-term (will take one to five years to complete) timeframes.

References

Asana. (2022, June 15). What is a professional development plan (PDP)? 6 steps to create one [blog post]. https://asana.com/resources/professional-development-plan

Banton, C. (2022, April 11). How to build a professional development plan for your employees. Placement Holdings. https://www.placement.com/learn/build-a-professional-development-plan