The knowledge and experience that practitioners bring to the profession is the foundation of an inquiry-based system. Therefore, the Staff Development Planning Team began their work in the fall of 1992 by making explicit what they knew to be true about their own learning, based on their real experiences.

After examining their collective experience, the team generally agreed that the following knowledge should guide all other decisions about a staff development system:

We learn by collaborating with others.
We learn by participating actively.
The learning process includes a reflective phase.
Feedback from others is reinforcing and provides a "reality check."
We are goal oriented learners. We can determine our own goals or we can respond to program goals.
We learn by doing, by hands-on experience, and practice.
We are self-motivated when there is high interest, enjoyment, fascination, and curiosity involved.
Learning is a mutual experience.
Observation and modeling are powerful learning tools.
Learning must be placed in the meaningful, relevant context of our experience.
There are diverse ways to learn.
We need to feel psychologically safe when we learn.

Planning Team members then began to envision an "ideal" staff development system -- one that would embody the ideas which had been resonating throughout the discussions about professional learning. A number of themes consistently emerged and, as a result, they determined that an ideal staff development system should have the following characteristics:

• Decisions about staff development are made within the context of larger program goals.
• Practitioners have freedom to choose what and how they will learn based on issues that are meaningful for their practice.
• Staff development is an ongoing process.
• Practitioners represent the center of a staff development system with opportunities being accessible to all.
• People and services are interconnected. A network of services exists which has the effect of linking practitioners with one another.
• There are incentives in place for practitioners to involve themselves in staff development activities.
• A variety of learning options are afforded through the system.
• Staff development opportunities encourage and support collaboration among practitioners in all roles.
• Practitioners actively plan, implement, and evaluate all phases of staff development within the system.
• Information is easily and effectively communicated within the system.
• Practitioners generate new knowledge within the system. Knowledge is not simply delivered.
• The staff development system includes safe environments for risk taking.

By making these conditions explicit, the planning team had set forth some criteria for evaluating their system in the future.