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Distance Learning for Professional Development
In the past 20 years in the United States, distance learning has played a rapidly increasing role in the professional development of knowledge workers and other skilled members of the workforce. This shift in education for work has directly impacted the formal and informal professional development of educators, trainers, instructional designers, military personnel, and other professionals invested in career-based education and learning. In degree-granting, postsecondary institutions alone, trend reports reflect consistent increases in student enrollment in online courses (from 1.6 million students in 2002 to 6.7 million students in 2011) as well as steady growth in online enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment (from 9.6% in 2008 to 32% in 2011). Corporate reports and government and military publications emphasize the increasing role of distance learning in training and human resource development.
The term professional development describes the acquisition of knowledge or skills through structured learning activities designed for individuals’ personal growth and career advancement. Professional development activities are primarily provided through employer-based training; government or military training; licensing, credentialing, or other training offered by for-profit or nonprofit industry providers; and formal sequences of instruction, both degree and nondegree based, at educational institutions including both secondary and postsecondary levels.
This entry first traces the evolution of professional development, noting significant shifts in approaches to education for work that form the foundation of current distance learning in professional development efforts. Then, a brief description of the evolution of online professional development is provided. The entry concludes by discussing notable recent trends in distance-delivered or online professional development and describing the current state of social science research related to recent trends in online professional development.
Evolution of Professional Development
The concept of professional development is not a 21st-century idea. Professional development has existed since the Paleolithic period with the creation and use of stone tools and the related education of children by their parents. During the Neolithic period, individuals learned to modify and improve the design and use of stone and wood tools for agrarian, construction, and domestic purposes. The agricultural civilization saw further development of tools as well as the establishment of a calendar, system of writing, and political states. We find additional evidence of professional development activities during the Bronze and Middle Ages in the implementation of formal apprenticeship training through the formation of craft guilds. These craft guilds represented a very necessary form of lower and middle-class workforce education as small towns and cities grew and as regulations and standards were needed to ensure the production of quality goods.
The Renaissance and Reformation saw a shift in the focus of education for work that paired formal, structured training in a school setting with learning a trade at home. During the Reformation in Europe, a number of educational theorists challenged traditional notions about education and proposed and studied various ideas for the preparation of individuals for work and life. Many of the ideas investigated during the Reformation still influence workforce education and professional development in the United States today. In colonial America, education for work mirrored the events in Europe; families and churches were responsible for much of the educational efforts. An American version of apprenticeship programs formed the basis for mass education, but colonies recognized a need for community-based schools to assist in the education of a free society.
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