However, now that I am on the verge of slumber, my mind has finally awoken (side note, why is it that I can go an entire day half asleep and then by the time 10:00pm rolls around I am suddenly wide awake? This happens all too often.). I am stuck on a thought a new coworker of mine has placed in my cranium earlier this afternoon. He is licensed in two states other than mine own, both of which require their own versions of continuing education. He mentioned how he earns his credits via free webinars online, etc. and he casually noted how many continuing education programs are merely a 15 minute powerpoint followed by 40 minutes of product promotion. There is no way for the jurisdiction to oversee all the continuing education programs, so we rely on the provider's dedication and honesty in providing these credits sans proprietary influence. Of the 10 or so credits I have observed in the past 6 months, I can think of maybe one that I would feel comfortable not flagging. Most recently, I noted a "1-hour" continuing education presentation that lasted 15 minutes. "Looks like we have some time, mind if I tell you about our latest products?"
My point with this is I am wondering if passing a bill for continuing education in Pennsylvania is useful at all. It seems like I would rather spend my time conducting my own research, as many architects must do in advancing their projects, than sitting through some product rep's spiel, which may not contain any useful or even accurate information!
Is there some other way we can enforce continuing education besides tabulating widely diverse credit hours? My mind turns to the governing body that mandates the licensing process for us in the first place... NCARB. Perhaps NCARB should be the sole provider of continuing education. They already have a pretty good library of monographs with quizzes that qualify for continuing education credits. I don't know how regularly they are updated, though.
I'll have to ponder this more at a later time.
