Professional Development Standards
Professional Development is the continuous process of acquiring new knowledge and skills that relate to one’s profession, job responsibilities, or work environment.
NNU facilitates PD courses to a variety of professional audiences. Measurement of course training content for professional recognition is usually established and valued by the professional discipline. NNU provides courses that may be measured by Professional Development (PD) Credit(s), Continuing Education Unit(s), or Certificate.
Professional Development Credit
A minimum of fifteen (15) hours of formal instruction, led by a qualified Master’s level content instructor, is required for each professional development credit. Professional development courses are pass / fail (unless otherwise requested). A pass grade denotes 70% or above.
Student learning hours are achieved through various instructional, pedagogical, and content delivery methods. Usually these hours are quantified as the expected total student time dedicated to the sum of all included learning activities within a course, as represented by the course syllabus.
Instructors cannot take the class they are teaching for credit. However, if an instructor is overseeing a course that is being taught by an outside presenter or is collaborative in nature, NNU CPD will set up a separate section for the instructor to earn credit. This separate section will be overseen by a NNU instructor. To receive a pass grade, the submission of a reflection paper is required. CPD also offers a course to adjunct instructors to earn credit for PD course development.
Continuing Education Units (CEU)
A CEU is well recognized across a number of professions as comprised of 10 hours of professional development instruction, and may be awarded in increments. Thus a two day 16 hour course may be measured as 1.6 CEUs. Per discipline, learning application products may or may not be assigned to receive award.
NNU CPD discourages the set-up of CEUs for Idaho educators because the Idaho State Department of Education states on its website that CEUs verified only by a CEU transcript cannot be accepted for teacher recertification
NNU Academic Integrity Expectations
Academic work submitted by an individual (such as papers, assignments, reports, tests) shall be the student's own work or appropriately attributed in part or in whole to its correct source. Submission of commercially prepared (or group prepared) materials as if they are one's own work is unacceptable. Students may not share work with other students, except where a collaborative learning team expects such.
Center for Professional Development, Northwest Nazarene University
623 S. University Blvd, Nampa, Idaho 83686 208-467-8439