The Personal Development Plan
(PDP)
A COMPASS FOR STUDENT SUCCESS
CATHY BUYARSKI
ASSISTANT DEAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
IUPUI
CBUYARSK@IUPUI.EDU
Focus on Learning
Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP)
of Association of American Colleges and
Universities (AACU)
The Essential Learning Outcomes
 The Principles of Excellence

Principles of Excellence
Principle Two:
Give Students a Compass
Focus each student’s plan of study on
achieving the Essential Learning Outcomes
and assess progress
What is a Personal Development Plan?
Personal development planning is a process which will
enable students at IUPUI to understand, implement,
and mark progress toward a degree and career goal by
creating and following a personalized plan that is open
to revision and reevaluation every semester in
collaboration with an academic advisor or faculty
member.
Why are we implementing the PDP?
The personal development plan is designed to foster:
1. Goal commitment (student commitment to earning
a degree)
2. Academic achievement (through goal setting and
planning)
3. Curricular coherence and meaning
4. Each of these goals is a way to foster student
development
Five Learning Outcomes for the PDP
1.
Self-Assessment: Students identify success-related competencies
2.
Exploration: Students research and identify realistic and informed
3.
Evaluation: Students analyze their academic progress in terms of
4.
Goal Setting: Students connect personal values and life purpose to the
5.
Planning: Students locate programs, information, people, and
academic and career goals
progress toward academic and career goals
motivation and inspiration behind their goals
opportunities to support and reality test their goals.
In the Beginning…
 Fall 2008
 Approximately 1250 in 52 sections completed a PDP
 Assessment: focus groups, student survey, content analysis
 Assessment
 Faculty and advisors liked the PDP but worried that it would
become “busy work” and the student wouldn’t use it moving
into the future
 Students liked the academic planner and getting to know
themselves
 Content was acceptable but students didn’t present evidence or
reflection at the level we had hoped; career-related content
was weak
Moving to 2009-2010
 Approximately 1800 students completed a PDP
 Began conceptualizing the PDP as part of an
electronic document that a student would carry with
them and update as they move through their college
experience
 Committee
 ePort
 UITS/CTL
 Faculty from a variety of schools and first-year seminars
 Center for Service and Learning
Key Discussion Points
 How do we create a presentation that students will
find engaging and that they will “own”?
 What can we reasonably expect from first-year
students? How can we meet student’s personal and
cognitive development but build a framework that
will be suitable as they learn and mature?
 How can we build a framework that may allow other
programs to utilize the tool?
Components of “ePDP”
 About Me
 Educational Goals
 Educational Plan
 Career Goals
 My Academic Showcase
 My Co-Curricular Experiences
 Resume
Demonstration of the PDP
Supporting the use of the ePDP
Faculty Development

Summer 2010 conducted week long institute for faculty in pilot




Technology
Scaffolding of curriculum
Reflection
For Future Faculty Development



Faculty development required to use the ePDP the first time
Continuous development for “veteran” users
Web site with sample ePDPs, resources, video clips for users
Assessment of the ePDP
 Student course evaluation
•
General questions on course evaluation regardless of completing a
paper PDP or ePDP
 Initial results are showing that students who
completed all sections of any PDP (paper or
portfolio) had significantly greater outcomes on:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ability to succeed academically
Adjustment to college life
Understanding the PULs
Developing personal goal
Feeling connected to IUPUI
Feeling able to meet the demands of college
Survey to Students Using the ePDP
 Survey to students completing ePDP
•
66% of student respondents indicated that “Understanding Self / Self
Awareness” was a specific area of learning that they experienced in
completing their ePDP. Within this learning area students also specified the
Sub-Categories of: “Identifying Strengths & Weaknesses”, “Understanding
Learning Styles / Personality, “Identifying Personal Knowledge, Skills, &
Abilities (KSA)”, and “Values & Ethics”.
•
40% of student participants indicated that the technological processes
associated with completing an ePDP were “Easy to Use”.
•
21% of student participants responded that “More Organization & Improved
Process of Completing the ePDP” as a suggestion for improvement.
Content Analysis
 Formative Assessment to Improve Prompts and
Rubrics
•
Conducted workshops with reviewers to enhance inter-rater
reliability
•
Distributed sections of the PDPs to at least three reviewers
•
Final meeting to discuss points of divergence with an eye
toward fine tuning the prompts and rubrics
Student reactions to the PDP…
“I thought the PDP was a great idea. It helps you
think about the processes you [use] to study and
complete assignments. It helped me to revise my
goals and come up with some new ones. The best
part was the peak performance plan because it
helped map out the future classes so that you
know where you need to go and where you have
been.”