Good online CPD is not something you simply sit through

You have set aside an evening for some online CPD. You make a cup of tea, open the webinar and settle in. The subject is relevant, and the speaker clearly knows their stuff.

Forty-five minutes later the slides are still going, the chat is quiet, you have not been asked to do anything yet, and your attention has started to wander. Perhaps you answer an email at the same time…. the webinar eventually finishes, you record the CPD and then have to think quite hard about what you will take back into practice.

It is a familiar format. A great deal of veterinary CPD is now webinar-based, and webinars can be a brilliant way to make expertise accessible. There is nothing inherently wrong with a webinar, a lecture, a podcast or an article. Listening and reading both have a place, but the more useful question is: what are we asking the learner to do with the information?

We tend to recreate the learning we have experienced

When people begin developing their own training or CPD, they quite naturally draw on what learning has looked like for them. Most of us have been through a school, college or university system that was heavily based around lectures, note-taking and examinations. We were given information, learnt it, reproduced it for an assessment and moved on to the next thing.

Of course, professional training also includes placements, practical work and learning on the job, but the formal teaching is often still led by the question, ‘What does somebody need to know to pass this assessment?’ which is a different starting point from, ‘What does this particular person need to think through, try or change in their own practice?’

So it is hardly surprising that many people who are new to delivering training think they need to deliver a webinar, record themselves talking through a PowerPoint or write down everything they know. Unless somebody has experienced a different kind of teaching, why would they automatically imagine anything else? Knowing a subject and knowing how to help somebody else learn it are different things.

When we brainstorm ideas within the PeerVet Creators community, we often start with what somebody already has. It might be a webinar they have delivered, a set of slides, a collection of cases or written material. We are not trying to throw all of that away and start again, but we look at where the learner could become part of it, where they could make a decision, predict an outcome, recognise something in an image, compare the advice with their own practice or stop and consider what they would say next.

This matters even more in self-paced online learning. When you teach in a room, participation can happen naturally; somebody asks a question, another person disagrees, a case sparks a conversation, or you notice puzzled faces and explain something differently. The learner studying alone does not have that live exchange, so we need to anticipate some of it. What are they likely to ask? Where might they hesitate? What assumption could they bring with them? What would you ask them if they were sitting in front of you? Those questions can then become part of the learning itself.

And just as a side note, online CPD does not need to begin with a webinar at all! It might begin with a real case, an image to interpret, a short audio explanation, a practical checklist, a decision to make or a problem somebody recognises from practice. The format comes AFTER the purpose.

Learning is not a transfer into an empty space

The familiar content-first approach begins with everything the expert wants to tell people. We gather the facts, put them into slides, talk through them and hope they arrive safely in somebody else’s brain.

Unfortunately, learning does not work like pouring water from one jug into another. The learner is not an empty container. They arrive with their own experience, existing knowledge, assumptions, questions, pressures and ways of doing things. New information has to connect with something. It needs to be processed, tested and made useful.

Adult-learning theories differ, and there is no single neat model that explains every learner. However, several themes appear repeatedly: adults bring experience to learning; they want to understand why something matters; they are often motivated by a real problem; and they need opportunities to connect new ideas with their own context. May and Silva-Fletcher’s paper on scaffolded active learning within veterinary education makes this clear. Modern professionals need to be able to find and use relevant knowledge for reasoning and decision-making, rather than simply memorising large amounts of information in case it is needed later. They describe this as building bridges from the classroom to the workplace, or, in the context of CPD, from the course back into practice.

This is particularly relevant in veterinary practice. People are rarely learning in a vacuum. They are thinking about the patient they saw last week, the conversation that went badly, the protocol their practice uses, the equipment they do not have, or the decision they know they may need to make on a night shift.

So what makes learning active?

Active learning means the learner has to work with the subject. They might retrieve an idea from memory, make a decision, explain their reasoning, compare approaches, solve a problem, apply a principle to a case, reflect on their own practice or discuss an uncertainty with somebody else.

There also needs to be a little bit of effort involved. If an activity is so easy that the answer is automatic, the learner has not had to do much with the information. If it is so difficult that they have no realistic way into it, it simply becomes frustrating. The useful space is somewhere in between: enough challenge that they have to pause, retrieve what they know, weigh up the options and stretch their thinking, with feedback there to help them move forward. That small moment of uncertainty or struggle is not something we need to design out of learning. Used well, it is often where the learning begins as the important activity is happening in the learner’s own thinking.

Chi and Wylie’s ICAP framework offers a helpful way to understand this. It describes engagement as passive, active, constructive or interactive. A learner might begin by listening to an explanation. They become more cognitively involved when they manipulate or annotate the information, generate an explanation or inference of their own, or develop their thinking through dialogue with somebody else.

The question is simply ‘is the learner receiving this, or doing something meaningful with it?’

• Passive: watching a long presentation without being asked to respond, decide or connect it to practice.
• More active: pausing to retrieve a key point, label an image, predict what happens next or choose an approach.
• Constructive: explaining why a choice makes sense, creating a plan, comparing the guidance with current practice or identifying what is missing.
• Interactive: working through a case with others, questioning different perspectives and developing a better answer together.

Before I sound as though nobody is allowed to sit quietly and listen ever again, passive attention does have value. Sometimes we need a clear explanation before we can do anything useful with it. The problem comes when receiving information is the whole learning experience.

Bring the learner back into the learning

Perhaps the simplest way to think about active learning is that we stop designing CPD only around what the expert wants to say, and start designing it around what the learner needs to think about, practise, question or change.

I am a huge advocate for lifelong learning. Children are endlessly curious: they ask why, test things and want to have a go. I do not believe that disappears when we become adults. Sometimes I think we have simply become used to learning being something we sit through, revise for or complete because somebody told us we had to.

Good CPD should wake that curiosity back up and create the sort of challenge that makes somebody lean in rather than switch off. The learner should be left thinking, ‘Oh, I have never looked at it that way,’ or wanting to try something when they are next in practice.

There is evidence!

A widely cited meta-analysis by Freeman and colleagues examined 225 studies in university science, engineering and mathematics. Students taught using active-learning approaches performed better in assessments, while students in traditional lecture-based teaching were more likely to fail. Veterinary-specific evidence is beginning to catch up. A 2026 literature review by Garner and colleagues describes active-learning approaches relevant to veterinary education, ranging from simple, individual, low-technology tasks to collaborative activities, educational games and simulation.

One useful example comes from online veterinary radiography teaching. Devine and colleagues compared an online case-based course with a virtual lecture-based course. Students completing the case-based course achieved better examination and radiograph-report scores, and the results suggested advantages for longer-term learning over lecture-only teaching. This involved veterinary students rather than qualified professionals completing CPD, but it offers a practical example of how changing what the learner is asked to do can make a difference.

Research into continuing education for human health professionals is more cautious, but points in a similar direction. A 2021 Cochrane review found that educational meetings and workshops can improve professional practice, although the effects vary and are often modest – in simple terms, attending something is not the same as changing what happens afterwards. The design, relevance, opportunity to participate and realities of the workplace all influence whether learning travels back into practice.

Moore and colleagues’ outcomes framework for continuing education is useful here too. It moves whether someone attended and whether they liked it, towards learning, competence, performance and, ultimately, outcomes. In plain English: the success of CPD should not end with a full attendance list and a positive feedback form!

CPD should lead somewhere

The RCVS describes its CPD approach as outcomes-focused. The cycle asks veterinary professionals to plan, do, record and reflect, with the aim of going beyond logging hours to improving knowledge and skills. May and Kinnison reported that in reflective accounts from early participants in an outcomes-focused RCVS programme, they found changes that went beyond just accumulating knowledge, but led to changes in practitioner behaviour, practice teams and benefits for patients, owners and businesses.

This is the bit I keep coming back to. CPD can become a box-ticking exercise almost without us noticing: find something relevant, let the webinar run, collect the certificate, record the time. Job done. But if somebody is giving up an evening or part of their weekend, surely we want that time to matter?

The change does not have to be dramatic. A learner might ask a better question during the next consultation. They might recognise a risk sooner, feel more confident starting a conversation, alter one part of a protocol or know where to look when they meet an unfamiliar case. Reflection then becomes much less onerous because the learning has already prompted something worth reflecting on.

For me, the starting question is not, ‘What content shall we include?’ It is, ‘What might somebody do differently after this?’ Once that is clear, the content and activities have a purpose.

A webinar can still be active

This is not an argument for getting rid of webinars. A live webinar can invite people into a case, ask them to predict an outcome, use a poll to expose different approaches, pause for questions or draw on the experience in the room. Even one well-chosen decision point can change the learner’s role from audience member to participant.

However, a recording needs a little extra thought because the learner cannot take part in the original chat or ask the speaker a question. Instead, a recording could be divided into useful sections, paired with a case, interrupted by a question, followed by a workplace task, or connected to discussion forum where the learner can continue thinking with others.

How PeerVet can support active learning

In a nutshell, this is why I built PeerVet: an online platform where veterinary professionals can turn their expertise into purposeful learning experiences. Veterinary professionals have so much experience and so many useful stories, cases and ways of approaching problems. I wanted to give them somewhere to turn that expertise into learning other people can use – without deciding that the only respectable way to share it is to deliver another two-hour webinar.

Creators can combine straightforward content with questions, cases, interactive video, knowledge checks, branching decisions, reflective prompts, downloadable resources and activities to try in practice. Learners can also continue the conversation through the community rather than reaching the certificate and disappearing. That does not mean every course needs every feature, active learning can be very simple. Ask the learner what they would do before revealing the expert’s approach, invite them to compare a protocol with their own, give them a case and ask what information they would want next or end with one action they can take back to their team.

PeerVet is designed to be creator-led. The Creator Toolkit helps people use the platform and think through the learning development process, while the PeerVet Creator community gives us somewhere to share ideas and learn from one another. You do not need to become an instructional designer before you are allowed to share what you know, you just need to start thinking about the person on the other side of the screen.

If you have knowledge, cases or experiences that could help other veterinary professionals, PeerVet gives you the tools to turn them into active online learning in a way that works for you and for the people you want to reach.

Could your expertise become an active learning experience?

You might have an existing webinar, presentation or collection of resources, or simply an idea you would like to explore.

Sign up as a PeerVet Creator and discover what your idea could become. It’s free to join and have a play with the features and help is on hand to help you develop your ideas into reality!

References and further reading

Chi, M. T. H. and Wylie, R. (2014). The ICAP Framework: Linking Cognitive Engagement to Active Learning Outcomes. Educational Psychologist, 49(4), 219-243

Freeman, S. et al. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410-8415

Forsetlund, L. et al. (2021). Continuing education meetings and workshops: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Moore, D. E., Green, J. S. and Gallis, H. A. (2009). Achieving desired results and improved outcomes: integrating planning and assessment throughout learning activities. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 29(1), 1-15.

Garner, B. C., Cazzini, P. and Marcos, R. (2026). Active Learning Strategies in Veterinary Medicine: A Literature Review. Veterinary Medicine International, 2026, 7397383.

May, S. A. and Kinnison, T. (2015). Continuing professional development: learning that leads to change in individual and collective clinical practice. Veterinary Record, 177(1), 13.

May, S. A. and Silva-Fletcher, A. (2015). Scaffolded Active Learning: Nine Pedagogical Principles for Building a Modern Veterinary Curriculum. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 42(4), 332-339.

Taylor, D. C. M. and Hamdy, H. (2013). Adult learning theories: implications for learning and teaching in medical education. Medical Teacher, 35(11), e1561-e1572.

Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Continuing professional development (CPD): requirements and the outcomes-focused CPD cycle.