Was discussing kids at an "after seminar session review period" last week with a friend.
He mentioned that his college grad daughter who is between jobs was working for one of the temp. employment providers here. Recently, one of her jobs was to man the door at a continuing ed. event for the the local attorneys and sign them in AND OUT.
Apparently, there were a few who thought this was a rather bothersome undertaking.
We self report here and it's pretty much an honor system.
does any state actively monitor the continuing ed. as described above?
SAMSOG used to. We had a date and time stamp that was stamped on your attendance certificate when you entered and then when you exited. That proved to be a REAL pain. Then we decided that this was supposed to be a PROFESSIONAL organization and depend on the professionalism of the attendees to monitor their own. The certificates are handed out at the end of the session as you leave.
Andy
At the CEU sessions at the NJ conference, you sign in on an attendance list at the beginning of the class. Your name appears there as per your registration. There is a hotel conference employee at each classroom doorway to monitor this. There are blank spaces in the event someone decides to change classes.
About fifteen minutes from the end, the certificates are passed out by the same monitor to be signed and collected upon leaving.
In about fifteen years of attending, I've yet to notice any egregious cheating, although there are often numerous late arrivals.
Annoying thing: this year, I attended five 4 hour classes. At three of them, the same person was late by at least fifteen or twenty minutes for each.
Yes, NC does. You must show a picture Id and sign in and out to seminars. The sponcer must keep these records. We always signed in and out to State Society seminars so they could keep records. A few years ago some "bright" guy sent his office help so they could sign in & out. Now the picture ID.
Texas
At the seminars I've attended, there is a sign in/out sheet for the morning and again afternoon session and a few forms to fill in at the end of the day.
Last year we began the honor system again after many years of the organization keeping up with our hours and reporting them at renewal time.
At the WV conference, they use a sign in- sign out sheet that doubles as a certificate. You take a copy and leave a copy. Makes keeping track of the PDH's easy if you've already got a certificate with the course name, date, instructor, etc.
A few years ago NY went to scanning bar codes on your name tag as you checked in and as you left. This year we signed a sheet on the way in and out. At the close of the class, you received the certificate; a duplicate with one copy returned to NYSAPLS for their records. It worked well.
KS
Monitoring PDH's Random audits here in SOZ
RADU
Great Intentions, Poor Results
The overall sense of the posts above makes me glad CA doesn't have a continuing education requirement. CE is a nice concept, but I have yet to see an implementation that justifies the time and money. Even the tightest monitoring can't guarantee that attendees actually learn anything, so you end up with the same result we have in CA: those who care make sure they stay abreast of professional developments, and those who don't fall further into mediocrity.
For the righteous
A surveyor down in San Antonio said he attended a seminar there
put on by some Wisconsin bunch. Robillard and a couple attorneys
spoke. When Robillard was done with his diatribe, he went to the
back and slept with a half dozen other surveyors.
At a seminar I attended, a surveyor fell asleep, the seminar ended,
and the door monitor dropped off the surveyor's certificate next
to the sleeping surveyor.
There Are Poor Practitioners........
.........in ANY profession, just as there are dishonest people and cheaters in any profession.
Shall we scrap any sort of measure to improve just because there are those who won't (or can't) comply?
I say the hell with those who cheat on their attendance, and those who fall asleep in classes......it's their loss, and their clients.
If the proctor had any common sense, he or she should have let the guy sleep and walked away with his certificate.
> does any state actively monitor the continuing ed. as described above?
At the Oregon Conference they give out name tags with bar codes on them. At the door to each seminar the bar code was scanned by a volunteer (usually an OIT student). In the weeks to come I'll be getting a certificate in the mail stating which seminars I attended.
This has been the practice for a few years now.
It is possible to sneak out after getting scanned, and still get the cert, so there is still an element of honor involved.
