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