A NEW WAY
The changing
face of
professional
learning
STAFF TENURE
< 10 years: 64%
10 to 19 years: 27%
20 to 29 years: 8%
30+ years: 1%
118th Annual Report 2013
KU’s commitment to staff development
and professional learning has long been the
envy of many early childhood education
providers. It fuels the quality of our programs,
and the long tenure of our staff. Like all
areas of quality education, innovation is
constant within professional learning. 2013
saw the KU Professional Learning Program
shift away from traditional short-session
workshop based training, towards more
sustained and collaborative delivery styles
to support the development of strong
professional identities.
KU staff are now encouraged and supported
to engage in Professional Learning
Communities; cohorts of educators with
similar interests or goals, who meet, share
ideas, reflect on successes and challenges
within practice, question and research.
The Learning Communities view teachers
as researchers, and are supported by the
expertise of ‘critical friends’. This approach
of reflection, exploration and development
is reflective of strategies we encourage
amongst children, and the results are
proving to be just as inspiring.
One such Professional Learning Community
has focused on the use of technology within
the children’s educational environment.
Some centres within that community have
incorporated and encouraged the use of
iPads and tablets, explored the policies
and practices surrounding children’s
engagement with technology, and found
innovative new ways to document children’s
learning, including documentation carried
out by the children themselves. The
experiences and findings of the Technology
Learning Community will soon be published
and shared more broadly.