Who needs to complete PL to renew their VIT Registration?
Only fully registered teachers are required to complete professional learning for the VIT to renew their registration each year. They must complete at least 20 days of teaching, (or 100 days in the past 5 years), and 20 hours of professonal learning.
What activities does VIT consider professional practice?
Professional practice can include teaching, equivalent practice or educational leadership.
Any activities that teachers engage in that develop their professional knowledge and practice to support student learning and that are relevant to their teaching context can be counted as professional learning.
The VIT expects that all professional learning activities used as evidence to be formal and/or informal learning experiences aimed at improving the teacher’s knowledge, practice and competencies in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST).
Professional learning may include:
seminars, conferences, workshops and online learning
professional development days and action research projects within the workplace
short courses, multi-session professional learning and post-graduate study
research participation
professional reading (i.e. journals, research papers, books, reports)
collegiate meetings and professional conversations focussed on improving practice and outcomes for learners
resource research (i.e. professional associations and education organisations such as DET, VCAA, ACARA, AITSL, VIT), and
participation in education-related boards, committees or panels.
Short Clip from the VIT about accessing PL.
Teaching
Teaching includes both face-to-face and remote learning contexts where the work provides the opportunity to demonstrate practice against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) at the proficient teacher level. This includes:
Direct interaction (real-time engagement with learners, and may include a combination of pre-recorded lesson delivery and real-time interaction) with a group of school aged or early childhood aged learners
All aspects of classroom management, including the supervision of learners and the need to maintain a safe learning environment
Planning, teaching and assessing against an approved school curriculum or early childhood framework
Reporting to families, and
Engaging in any other education setting obligations.
Teaching does not include assisting any dependents with learning provided by another teacher / education provider, except where the teacher is a registered home-schooling provider with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA).
Equivalent practice
Teachers who work in alternative teaching settings or related fields of education, but are not teaching in a primary, secondary or special school, or in an early childhood setting, may be working in an equivalent practice.
Please note that equivalent practice roles cannot be used to meet returning from non-practising professional practice requirements or the requirements of moving from provisional to full registration.
A clear relationship between the work of these teachers and the APST provides a case for equivalent practice.
The equivalent practice should:
Involve the delivery of accredited curriculum, the assessment of learning levels and learning needs of learners, the modification of teaching practice to accommodate this, reporting of achievement, feedback on Learning and review and reflection on professional practice to improve learning, and
Show the teacher would be able to practice proficiently should they return to teaching in a school or an early childhood setting.
Educational leadership
Educational leaders may not be teaching, but their work supports or improves the professional knowledge and practice of teachers in schools and/or early childhood settings.
Teachers who work in leadership roles within a setting that has a relationship with the APST are working in educational leadership.
Educational leadership may involve such things as:
Providing leadership in a school or early childhood service
Developing resources and materials for use by teachers in schools or early childhood services
Research into teaching and learning, and the dissemination of that knowledge to teachers and/or other educational leaders
Policy development to support and improve teaching and learning, and
Working with teachers, either individually or collectively, to support and improve their professional knowledge and practice.
Recording my professional learning for the VIT
MyPD is an online tool for teachers to record their professional learning activities.
It is not compulsory for teachers to use MyPD for their own records. However, if they are randomly selected for auditing purposes or are returning from non-practising registration, teachers will be asked to use this tool to record their Professional Learning for the VIT and its relevance to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST).
Teachers can access MyPD via their MyVIT account by selecting the ‘MyPD’ tile and enter a new activity by selecting the ‘Add PD’ button.
Enter the following details about each PL activity:
Registration year (simply filter by the registration year and it will show you how many PD hours you have completed in that year)
Date, title and description of the activity
A reflection about the PL from the activity by answering two questions
What have your learnt from this PD activity and how does it link to the relevant APST you have selected?
How will you apply your learning from this PD activity to your practice to improve learning outcomes?
PD type, duration, and then selecting one or more of the relevant APST which the activity relates to.
For convenience, teachers can export their professional development activities into a PDF and upload certificates, notes or other related documentation before saving the activity.
All information above has been taken from the VIT website.
To record PL go to your VIT account and click on MyPD, then Add PD activity as below:
