At all levels of the education community there is a growing focus on, and investment in, teacher development. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) commissioned the Innovation Unit in the UK to undertake a comprehensive horizon scan of innovative performance and development and professional learning practices. Fifty organisations in ten countries were included in the scan. Schools, colleges and universities comprised around half of the data set, and the remaining examples were drawn from among technology and design companies, arts and cultural organisations, the armed forces, and providers of public services. Reading across the fifty examples reveals a number of trends in professional learning and performance and development.

The Interactive Design Program offers Victorian high school students training and paid employment in the creative industries, combining learning on the job with formal education. The program is aimed particularly at meeting the needs of rural and remote students. It uses a new model that combines learning on the job with formal education to give high school students training and employment in the creative industries. Launched last year, the program is a partnership between Lightmare Studios, an Australian game design company, and The Gordon, one of the largest regional providers of vocational education. The Interactive Design Program won two of the 2014 Australian Learning Impact Awards, including the esteemed People's Choice Award. It then went on to win silver at the IMS Global Learning Consortium Impact Awards, held in May 2014 in New Orleans. This model of virtual traineeships has the potential to be adapted for other industries. It may become a game changer in the way that high school students learn and prepare for careers of the future.