Continuing Professional Education: Creating the Future

Abstract

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created--created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating The paths are not to be found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination ... --John Schaar Creating the future in continuing professional education (CPE) sounds like a daunting, intimidating, and, at the same time, challenging and exciting task. But if we take Schaar's words to heart, then how do we go about creating the future, first in our minds and then through our actions? I believe that we can begin this process by first analyzing trends in the current practice of CPE. Next, I believe that it is essential to ask in-depth questions about these trends and focus on thinking critically about what these trends mean. Finally, I think it is important to begin asking ourselves how we are creating the future of CPE through our own actions. Current Trends in CPE In John Nasbitt's book, Megatrends, he analyzes current trends in society for the purpose of predicating where our culture was headed. Nasbitt observed that we were moving from an industrial society to an information society; from a national economy to a global economy; from short-term perspectives to long-term perspectives; from centralization to decentralization; from help through institutions to self-help; from hierarchies to networking; and from technology being forced into use to technology being pulled into use by appealing to people. Today, many of these societal trends have been realized and have either impacted or are impacting the provision of CPE. Related to Nasbitt's (1982) trends, numerous CPE authors have identified and analyzed trends as well, starting with Houle (1980) who called for CPE to be an integral part of professionals' lifelong learning. Houle felt that CPE was as important, if not more so, than pre-professional education. Knox (1990) identified themes that would be important to CPE providers in the future, including topics related to participants, society, benefits, collaboration, and leadership. Cervero (2000, 2001) called for the development of integrated systems of CPE and indicated that there were distinct CPE trends, including an increase in CPE offered at the workplace; an increase in distance education and technology as a delivery mechanism for CPE; a change in the collaboration among CPE providers; the corporatization of CPE; and the use of CPE to regulate practice. Queeny (2000) expanded these ideas by asserting that CPE in the future should address the need for teamwork, inter-professional collaboration, distance education, and competence along with accountability. It appears that these CPE authors are in alignment with Nasbitt in that they are emphasizing the importance of an information society, long-term perspectives, decentralization, networking, partnerships, and technology for the future of CPE. Critical Questions on the Future of CPE Asking in-depth questions and thinking critically about some of these trends is the next step in helping identify the future of CPE. The first trend that appears to be of great importance is the connection between CPE and the workplace. At the present time, more and more professionals are becoming employees of corporations, rather than independent practitioners. As a result, professional education is often provided within the workplace and tied to workplace needs rather than professional needs. To date, there has been little cooperation and/or networking among CPE providers and workplace learning educators or human resource development (HRD) professionals. The question here is: why is that? What prevents cooperation and networking across the disciplines of CPE and HRD? It appears that many commonalities between CPE and HRD can be found as both focus on learning in the workplace, yet, different philosophies, vocabularies, research bases, and theoretical bases have to this point created barriers to a closer examination of the connections between the two fields. …