Generating and Assessing
Learning
TH R O UG H A N O N L I N E P ER SO N A L
DE V E L O P M EN T P L A N (P DP )
INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
OCTOBER 2010
What is a Personal Development Plan?
Personal development planning is a process which will
enable first year 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 in the first-year
seminar
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 over the semester
4.
Goal Setting: Students connect personal values and life purpose to the
5.
Planning: Students locate programs, information, people, and
academic and career goals
in terms of 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 students in 52 sections completed a PDP
 Assessment process: focus groups, student survey, content
analysis of student products
 Results
 Faculty and advisors liked the PDP but worried that it would
become “busy work” and that the students 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
Survey Results
 List three specific things you learned from
completing a PDP:








What classes I need to take in the future
How to set goals for the future
How to set goals for my career
How to manage my time
I have more goals than I thought
I need campus experience
I need a career goal
How long my educational career will last
Moving Forward
 Began conceptualizing the PDP as part of an
electronic document that students will carry with
them and update as they move through their college
experience
 Focus on using the PDP to help students create
coherence and meaning around their college
experience and understand how the college
experience helps develop their sense of self and
shapes their future.
Key Discussion Points
 How do we create a presentation format / process
that students will find engaging and that they will
“own”?
 What can we reasonably expect from first-year
students? How can we honor student’s personal and
cognitive development and 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
Structure of ePDP and FYS Curriculum
 The ePDP is a presentation; it is the outcome of a
semester’s worth of work
But more importantly . . .
 ePDP is facilitated by the development of
assignments and templates that support successful
completion of each reflective prompt
Why an electronic portfolio?
 Easier to manage the portfolio process
Access
 Presentation
 Duplication
 Evaluation
 Storage
 Hypertext links allow clear connections between
information presented and portfolio artifacts
 Motivational for students and addresses ownership issues
of student-created work
 Creating an electronic portfolio can develop skills in
using multimedia technologies

(Barrett, 1997; Rogers & Williams, 2001; Wetzel & Strudler, 2006)
Generating Learning
 About Me: Developing Identity
Who am I?
What factors contributed to who I am?
Who do I want to become?
What evidence might we see from a
student who has achieved the
descriptor for the section?
What reflective prompts might generate
that evidence?
Assessing Learning: Section Rubrics
Section:
ABOUT ME
Background
Information
Beginning
Developing
Competent
Proficient
Identifies
elements /
aspects of
my
personal
identity
Explains those
elements /
aspects of my
identity such
that someone
who doesn’t
know me will
understand my
background
Gives
examples of
how these
elements /
aspects of my
identity play
out in my life
Relates these
elements/aspects
of my identity to
my success as a
student this
semester and
beyond - how do
or might they
positively and
negatively
influence my
success as a
student?
Assessing Learning: Section Rubrics
Section:
ABOUT
ME
Personal
Strengths
Beginning
Identifies
my
strengths
Developing
Competent
Explains what
Gives
each strength
examples of
means in my
how each
own words such strength plays
that someone
out in my life
who doesn’t
as a student
know me will
understand
them
Proficient
Relates these
strengths to my
success as a
student this
semester and
beyond - how
does or might
they contribute to
my success as a
student?
Assessing Learning: Section Rubrics
Section:
ABOUT ME
Lifetime
Achievement
Award
Beginning
Developing
Identifies
Explains
attributes of
these
who I want attributes so
to become that someone
and the life
who hasn’t
I want to
known me
have lived throughout my
life will
understand
the life I have
designed
Competent
Proficient
Gives
Relates the
examples of the attributes of who
potential
I am and what I
highlights /
will have
accomplishaccomplished in
ments of my life my life to my life
in which these
priorities and
attributes will
passions.
have played out
A Cyclical not Linear Process
Assessment
Outcomes
Pedagogy
Assessment in Practice
 Classroom practice


First-Year Seminar and Intro to the Major in Psychology
First-Year Seminar and Introduction to Professional Practice
in Nursing
About Me in Psychology Mind and Body TLC
Purpose to integrate three courses:
Orientation to the Psychology Major
Psychology as a Biological Science
Public Speaking
Themed Learning Community for first-year, traditionally
aged college students
3 Stages of the Assignment
• Create an “About Me” section utilizing the prompts in the PDP
and the added worksheet to create a Mission statement.
• Do exercise in class about culture’s impact on identity and
motivation.
• Meet with Cree Elders and hear stories of their understanding
of who they are and compare it to the in-class exercise.
• Give feedback of first try at About me using rubric and
formative assessment and have them utilize feedback and
resubmit “About Me” section.
Lessons Learned
 Diversity of faculty perspectives and experience
 Teaching and Pedagogy
 Is the sum greater than the parts when it comes to
assessment? If so, how do we assess so as to
document the “greater-ness”?
References
Barrett, H. (1997). Collaborative Planning for Electronic Portfolios:
Asking Strategic Questions. Retrieved October 15, 2010 from
http://electronicportfolios.org/portfolios/planning.html .
Rogers, G. & Williams, J. (2001). Promise and Pitfalls of Electronic
Portfolios: Lessons Learned from Experience. Retrieved October 15,
2010 from http://www.abet.org/Linked DocumentsUPDATE/Assessment/Promise and Pitfalls of Electronic
Portfolios_2001.pdf.
Wetzel, K. & Strudler, N. (2006). Costs and Benefits of Electronic
Portfolios in Teacher Education: Student Voices. Journal of Computing
in Teacher Education. 22(3): 69-78.