2025 CPD review

I started my CPD log in late 2024 to tick a box for professional membership requirements. I expected it to be routine: just a form to fill in every couple of years.

I was surprised how immediately useful it felt. Not just as a record, but as a tool for thinking, for sorting out what I actually needed to do. It made me sit up and think, “Oh wow: it’s actually working.”

I’ve had it for a year, so now feels like a good time to think about whether it’s useful.

I started my log by looking for templates. Nothing really fit, and I hadn’t ever needed a CPD log before, so I borrowed a nurse-CPD template I found on the web and rewrote it.

Over the year, I extended the log gradually, adding activities as I did them rather than trying to retroactively document everything at once. This meant I had to reflect on each activity in real time: how it affected my practice, what I could take away, and what was just procedural.

Alongside my CPD, I continued to focus on developing my public speaking and workshop facilitation skills. This year I delivered multiple sessions, including the NZATD Accessibility Toolkit webinar, Crackin’ L&D’s goal-setting session, and co-presenting on the award-winning Cervical Screening e-learning programme I worked on in 2023. I also ran two workshops at the Tahu Ignite conference.

I’ve been using my CPD log spreadsheet to record my preparation, delivery, feedback, and reflections for each session. I am hoping it will help me track patterns.

Reflecting across the year, about 35% of my CPD hours had direct, practical value: sessions where I could immediately apply something new that was really useful or see a path to a new area of understanding. About 55% were more about certification requirements (in my log I rated these as “At least I got a cookie”). A very small number, perhaps 10%, were a waste of time, either repetitive or hard to focus on. (I was surprised to find the log actually helped me drop things that weren’t going to result in happy entries about the value of the time spent. Usually I’m more completist.)

Courses I did that I would actively recommend include:

• Essential Skills in Adobe Illustrator 2024 Professional Certificate on LinkedIn Learning. This gave me useful hands-on practice with menus, tools, and shortcuts. The 60-minute timed quiz was genuinely challenging and pushed me to consolidate the skills immediately. I’ve recommended this to colleagues looking for structured and effective Illustrator training.
• Inclusive L&D Series: From Insights to Action. This series from L&D Shakers by Ingeborg Kroese is ongoing as I write. I have only been to the first, but it was very insightful indeed.
• Statistics Foundations series from LinkedIn Learning. Dense but useful. The courses helped me interpret evaluation data correctly, understand standard deviations, confidence intervals, and regression concepts, and apply them to my own survey and evaluation projects.

The best of the ‘cookie’ activities, which I did for certification more than learning, was the V19 refresher modules from Totara Academy. Important for staying current as a site administrator, but largely repeating my existing knowledge. There are really good simulation activities in this learning programme though.

Maintaining my CPD log has made it easier to see what’s actually useful and what isn’t. It helps me track patterns, apply learning, and make better decisions about where to focus next.

I highly recommend keeping a log, regardless of whether it’s a requirement. I made a template last year which anyone can use.

CPD Log Template.xlsx

Google Docs