Transcript The future of PDP @ Birmingham City University

The future of PDP @
Birmingham City University
Ruth Lawton & Jo Powell
Centre for Enhancement of Learning and
Teaching
Centre for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching
Objectives
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What is PDP?
Why are we engaging with PDP?
Staff and student perceptions
What does this mean for us?
What are other HEIs doing?
What else could we be doing?
How do we make change happen?
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What is PDP…?
• Our research shows that staff do not have a clear answer
about what Personal Development Planning (PDP) is: “It’s
about team working and communication”
• QAA (2009) definition is: ‘PDP is a structured and supported
process undertaken by a learner to reflect upon their own
learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for
their personal, educational and career development. It is an
inclusive process, open to all learners in all HE provision
settings and at all levels’
*QAA Personal Development Planning: guidance for institutional policy and practice in higher
education 2009
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What is PDP…?
• QAA 2009 goes on: ‘Effective PDP improves the capacity of
individuals to review, plan and take responsibility for their
own learning and to understand what and how they
learn. PDP helps learners articulate their learning and
the achievements and outcomes of HE more explicitly,
and supports the concept that learning is a lifelong and
life-wide activity’
• ‘The primary objectives of PDP are to enhance the
capacity of learners to reflect, plan and take
responsibility for their own learning and to understand
what and how they learn. PDP is based on the skills of
reflection and planning which are integral to knowing
how to learn in different contexts and to transfer that
learning throughout life’
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PDP-Why do we need to do it?
• QAA: Personal development planning: guidance for institutional
policy and practice in higher education 2009
• HEA Learning & Employability series: Personal development
planning and employability (revised edition 2009) BCU cited as
good practice case study K*
• Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR)
• (inter)National Research – Centre for Recording Achievement
(CRA)/Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2008
• QAA: Learning from ELIR 2003-07: Emerging approaches to
employability & personal development planning (2009)
• Conviction:
– PDP National Action Research Network
– BCU Staff perceptions of PDP
– BCU Student perceptions of PDP
*http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/publications/learningandemployability
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QAA Guidance 2009 – why update?
• 10 years experience in HE of implementing PDP
• Increased flexibility of when & where learning happening
• Roberts review & postgraduate education development =
learners will ‘take responsibility for their own personal
and professional development’
• Referral to PDP in subject benchmark statements
• Pre university curriculum – personalised learning
• Needs of mature learners and returners to study
• CPD in professions, commerce and industry
• Research evidence supporting the effectiveness of PDP
approaches
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QAA Guidance 2009
• ‘QAA will, through its development and
enhancement activities, support the introduction
and development of institutional policies for PDP,
and through its external audit and review
activities encourage and promote the
development of PDP processes by reporting on,
but not judging*, the practice seen’ QAA (2009)
* my emphasis
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QAA 2009: PDP is most effective
when it is:
• a main stream academic activity, explicitly supported by senior
managers
• linked to the learning objectives/outcomes of programmes
• undertaken regularly
• valued by learner
• Supported and valued by staff
• Supported by institutional structures, resources and expertise
• Formally recorded and linked to assessment processes
• Seen to be valued by society and other external stakeholders (eg
employers and professional bodies)
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Identifying Priorities for
Birmingham City University
EXERCISE:
QAA - Key actions for the effective
implementation of personal development
planning:
YOUR TASK: Identify the 3 actions that you think
are the priorities for BCU
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What’s already happening?
Strategic
• Integration of PDP into MA Ed module
and PG Cert
• Implicit integration into institutional
strategies: L&T, RoLEx, WP
• E-Portfolio Mahara launch with tools
and pedagogic framework - Alan
Staley
• PDP and e-Portfolio Activist Group to
support the projects
• BCU Employability Award
Operational
• Researching academic staff
perceptions of PDP – Jo and Ruth
• Graduate Employability Skills
Framework for mapping employability
skills opportunities to the curriculumRachel Moule (BSc Health and
Wellbeing) plus tentative work in ELSS
and BCBS
• 10 Step Reflection - BIAD
Practice
• Student perceptions of PDP- Michael
Schmidt and Ethan Rhemahn
• Student use of e-Portfolio (BSc Hons
Health and Wellbeing)-Rachel Moule and
Ethan Rhemahn
• Integration of Grad Skills Framework with
the personal tutor system- BSC Hons
Heath and Well Being)- Rachel Moule
• Ongoing support for staff one-to-one and
workshops (Jo & Ruth) including
supporting staffs own PDP
Dissemination opportunities
• SEDA PDF ‘Embedding Employability’
• Workshops & consultancy
• BCU L&T Festival
• The NARN:
– 26th /27th Nov CRA conferenceManchester
– April 2010 NARN national conference
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Our research with staff
• 136 responses to survey of staff perceptions
– Pilot of questionnaire = 11 responses
– On-line survey = 125 responses
• Staff value PDP and when they find out what it
‘really’ is they value it even more ‘even though I
valued PDP before I like it even more now’
• Staff don’t like the resources: ‘moodle’ ‘too
generic’
• Staff miss the point – it’s a process
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More staff results: What is PDP?
• “Personal Development Planning is the glue which brings
together the aspects of the course being studied. It is about
the students taking ownership of their learning and answering
the question what do I need to do to improve.”
• “In theory PDP could be an individual reflexive process
through which students identify their strengths and limitations
and act upon them. In practice it seems to be yet another
bureaucratic exercise.”
• “Supposedly supportive, but is based on a false assumption
that students will turn up and participate in such schemes and
participate.”
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PDP or its Parts?
PDP is seen as being important with a
mean of 3.23 (1: Useless to 4: Very
Useful). However, each of its parts is
seen as significantly more important
following statistical analysis *
3.70
3.60
3.50
3.40
3.30
3.20
3.10
3.00
2.90
2.80
Mean by Faculty
Employability
PDP
Reflection
Self Awareness
Action Planning
TI
D
E
PM
S
LT
H
Employability
H
EA
There is a slight difference
between faculties and how
they view PDP. TID and
BCBS see employability as the
most important element of
PDP, whilst the others
consider reflection and self
awareness as most important.
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
EL
L
PDP or it's Parts
S
Action
Planning
BC
B
Self
Awareness
D
Reflection
BI
A
PDP
Mean (1:Useless, 4:Very Useful)
Mean
Mean
Faculty
*Wilcoxon signed ranks non-parametric test carried out showing a significance to 0.001
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Our research with Students
Two pieces of research with students underway:
• Members of BCU PDP NARN group: Jo & Ruth, Michael
Schmidt (ASC) (+ funding via RoLEx), Ethan Rhemahn
(Health) and Rachel Moule (Senior Learning & Teaching
Fellow in the Faculty of Health and CETL).
• Rachel's CETL research project investigated students
reasons for engaging or not engaging with PDP via eportfolio. Results so far: Focus group with 8 first year
undergraduate students on BA Health & Wellbeing
degree.
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Research with students:
Student Perceptions of using e-Portfolio for PDP, their
motivations for engaging or not engaging.
• Focus group found:
– they really value the opportunities afforded by PDP
• the time and space
– BUT it feels ‘indulgent’
– If given academic acknowledgement they would give it a higher
priority
– Needs to be more clearly integrated and signposted throughout
the course
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What have other HEIs done?
• Surrey: A resources Guide for Academic Staff
• Leeds Met: How to Get a Good Degree by Phil Race –
for every first year; and for all staff ‘Resources for
Employability & PDP’ file
• Edge Hill: PDP accredited and integral part of personal
tutorial system; each department has a ‘champion’ to
help embed PDP in the curriculum
• Coventry: The Add+vantage Scheme on line
Employability Learning Programme (ELP) assessed and
accredited in all years of UG study
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Research and policy =…?
If the key to engaging students is to educate
and engage our staff…
• Re brand and rename PDP
• Market the rebrand to staff and students
• Continue with the staff survey analysis – we will table a
report on the research at next L&T C
• Continue to undertake research with students – Rachel,
Ethan and Michael
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Our ideas – Engaging staff
• Generic Book: eg ‘Personal and professional
development for your BCU students’
– Issues: costs; too generic to engage staff
• Faculty specific book: eg ‘Personal and professional
development for your Health students’
– Issues: costs; too generic to engage subject focussed staff
• Compulsory (faculty / course specific?) workshops
– Issues: logistics; non attendance; compulsion leading to
resistance to the message
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Our ideas – Engaging students
• Book: Your Future – what next?
– Issues: costs; generic
• Work book: (as above)
– Issues: costs; environmentally unfriendly; still not specific enough for
some courses
• (Faculty/department specific?) elearning – including
compulsory enrolment via faculty moodle: Your Future –
what next?
– Issues: staff still not engaged with Moodle; staff need to refer students;
assessment leads to engagement; updating every ePDP course…
Personal and professional development (including
employability) must be EXPLICIT to students
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Your ideas?
EXERCISE: What would help you to deliver PDP?
YOUR TASK: Jot down on post-its what you need
to help you to embed personal development
planning
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Conclusion
• The elements of personal development planning
empower students, encourage life long learning,
encourage academic attainment and better career
decision–making.*
• The key to engaging students is staff.
• How do we engage staff?
ALL ideas (and invitations) welcome
* Inability to make good career decisions issue identified by Futuretrack research – 130,000 applicants
to UCAS 2006 completed the survey: www.hecsu.ac.uk/hecsu.rd/research_reports_236.htm
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