RGU:DELTA

Personal Development Planning (PDP)/ePortfolio: What are we talking about?

by

Dr Charles Juwah Department for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Content
Personal Development Planning (PDP): What is it? Why PDP? Providing the framework to ensure effective student engagement in learning and development.

Outcomes
Appraise and discuss the importance and process of Personal Development Planning (PDP). Use PDP and ePortfolio to support the development of relevant knowledge, skills, competencies. Justify the role of PDP in enhancing employability (or employment skills).

What is Personal Development Planning (PDP)?

Personal development planning (PDP) is defined as 'a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development'.

What is Personal Development Planning (PDP)?

PDP embraces a range of approaches to learning that connect: planning (an individual's goals and intentions for learning or achievement), doing (aligning actions to intentions), recording (thoughts, ideas, experiences, in order to understand and evidence the process and results of learning) and reflection (reviewing and evaluating experiences and the results of learning) (HEA 2008).

Why PDP?

PDP
Academic: Developing knowledge, skills, abilities and competences - Working Portfolio of Students Artefacts - Assessment

- Develop reflection
- Supporting personal/professional development

PDP
- Repository of artefacts - Evidencing progression of learning and achievement (of the intended, outcomes, competencies, etc.):
a basis for accreditation of prior learning. it can also serves as a transcript

- Resource for planning a CV - Showcasing and presentation of evidence of achievement

Benefits of PDP
PDP process will enable you to:
become more self aware of their learning needs; identify opportunities for learning and developing new skills outwith the curriculum; identify their strengths and weaknesses and to devise ways by which to improve on them; develop skills and capabilities that are relevant for employment;

Benefits of PDP
PDP process will enable you to:
make the link between teaching, learning and assessment and to take ownership of your learning; be more effective in monitoring and reviewing your progress; record in a more structured way your academic achievement and career-related capabilities; enhance your continuing professional development become autonomous lifelong learner.

Benefits of PDP
Enables feedback and support to be provided around your learning needs by: peers

tutors
mentors supervisors

What is involved in PDP?

Stages of PDP
Profiling

Setting outcomes and learning objectives

Planning and Doing Assessment

Stages of PDP
Feedback Action planning Evidencing and recording achievement

What can I use to support my PDP?

Types of PDP
Paper based PDP Electronic PDP (ePDP) http://eportfolio.rgu.ac.uk OR

IP Address: http://193.63.235.23

ePortfolio
Global Profile Create a global profile: - Name - Password - Status - Location * Complete boxes with asterisk

ePortfolio
Tour of the site: Provides information on the various sections of the ePortfolio

Hovering over each icon provides relevant information on that section of the ePortfolio

ePortfolio
Sections of the ePortfolio:
Profile/Skills Audit Learning Style Learning Agreement Outcome (s)/ Objective (s) Planning and Doing Learning (Formal, informal, individual or group based) Sections of the ePortfolio: Learning/Reflective Journal (Review) Assessment Feedback Action Planning Evidencing learning Career Dev CV

ePortfolio
Uploading Files to the ePortfolio

You can upload a range of files: - Word - Audio - Graphics - Images - Moving images: streamed video - ASCII - Excel or Access
* You are restricted to 20MB

ePortfolio
Private and Public Spaces

Your ePortfolio is private

However, you may wish to make any or all sections of your portfolio to specific individuals (e.g. tutor/mentor/coach or fellow students, etc.) You can grant individuals access to any section of your portfolio by inserting their names in the relevant fields

ePortfolio
Calendar Management Manage your activities using the calendar

What next?
Activity 1
Now that you have familiarised yourself with the PDP process and the ePortfolio tool, please complete the following:

Produce a profile of your knowledge, skills and competences pertaining to teaching using the skills audit proforma or the SWOT analysis approach.
Use the Learning Style Questionnaire to produce a profile of your preferred learning style. Note. Please share your skills profile and output of your learning style test with your mentor and tutor.

Contact
Dr Charles Juwah Department for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Assessment St Andrew St Building Aberdeen AB25 1HG Tel 01224 263346 e-mail: c.juwah@rgu.ac.uk

Further Reading
COTTRELL, S., 2003. Chapters 1 and 2, Skills for Success: The Personal Development Planning Handbook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. STRIVEN, J., 2008. Chapter 1, Report on Personal Development Planning. Higher Education Academy [online] Available from: www.heacademy.ac.uk/pdp (Accessed 14 December 2008) CENTRE FOR RECORDING ACHIEVEMENT (CRA) http://wwwrecordingachievement.org NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO HIGHER EDUCATION, 1997. Higher Education in the Learning Society, Report of the National Committee (The Dearing Report) [online] Available from: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ncihe/nr_139.htm

References
HIGHER EDUCATION ACADEMY (HEA), 2008. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING (PDP) http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/pdp/htm http://www. heacademy.ac.uk/PDP-UK-NETWORK.htm HIGHER EDUCATION ACADEMY, 2006. Student Employability Profiles. The Higher Education Academy September 2006. ISBN 1-90578817-7 QUALITY ASSURANCE AGENCY , 2000. Guidelines for the progress files [online] Available from: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/progfileHE/guidelines/guideline.pdf