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Personal Development Planning and
ePortfolio
Student Guide
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Introduction
PDP helps you to develop the skills you need to take responsibility for your learning,
development and career progression. Engaging with PDP will help you to develop the skills
you need to manage your learning and development during your time as a student and after
you leave University. PDP is an integral part of all programmes at UWS
Engaging in PDP activities will involve thinking about your reasons for deciding to study at
University. You may have come to University with a very clear idea of your reasons for doing
so, perhaps with a specific career in mind. However, once you are here it can be easy to lose
sight of those reasons. PDP helps you to take some ‘time out’ to reflect on your goals and to
identify and achieve the smaller steps required to reach them. It helps you to identify how
your current activities fit into your overall plan for success.
Alternatively, you may have made the decision to come to university with no specific goals
in mind. It may have seemed like the logical next step after school or college. Or you may,
as a result of your studies, re-think your aspirations and goals and decide to pursue a
different path. Engaging in the PDP process will help you to think through your options, to
clarify what direction you want to take and decide what steps you need to take to get there.
Of course, you may be undertaking study purely for reasons of personal interest or simply
for the enjoyment of learning. If that’s the case, engaging in PDP can enhance your ability to
get the most out of your academic study.
Whatever your reason for studying at University and whatever your goals in life, personal
development planning will help you to recognise and develop confidence in your abilities
and skills, enhance your academic performance, and record your progress towards your
personal goals. Your PDP journey will be guided and supported by lecturers, personal
tutors and Effective Learning Tutors. You can also access a wide variety of online resources
and contact an Effective Learning tutor for guidance and support on any aspect of PDP.
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What is PDP?
The basic principle of PDP is simple. It involves identifying your goals, making plans to
achieve them, and recording your progress.
Personal Development Planning (PDP) is a structured and supported process of reflection
that you will engage with during your time at University. As part of this you will reflect on
your learning, performance and achievements in your personal, academic and work life and
make plans for your personal, educational and career development. PDP will also help you
to get the most out of your time at University by enhancing your knowledge of what you
learn and how you learn it.
Engaging in PDP will help you to:
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become a more effective, independent and confident self-directed learner
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understand how you are learning and relate your learning to your wider context
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improve skills for learning and career management
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articulate personal goals and evaluate progress towards their achievement
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have a positive attitude to learning throughout your life
PDP focuses on 3 broad learning areas – Personal; Academic; and Career and Employability:
Figure 1: The Effective Learning Framework
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The overlapping regions in the diagram above represent instances where you will identify
learning and development that relates to more than one area. For instance, having to work
to deadlines in an employment setting is a skill that can also improve your ability to
independently manage your university workload.
You will review your learning and development in each area, and reflect on your;
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past experience and achievement
current needs, preferences and experiences
future aspirations and plans.
Personal
The process of PDP is rooted in your personal experience. Your learning, development and
aspirations are shaped by your personal lifestyle priorities, values and ways of thinking. Your
personal life provides many valuable opportunities for the development of skills. For
instance, you may develop excellent time management and organisational skills if you are
juggling education, work and family commitments. These skills are also relevant to your
academic and career development. Your personal situation will also have an impact on your
academic and career choices.
Academic
You may have come to University straight from school or from a previous course of study at
college or university, or you may be returning to study after a long break. Whatever your
educational background, engaging with the process of PDP helps you to reflect on the
academic skills you already have; to identify what skills and attributes you need to develop
and put plans in place to develop them. This will help you to get the most out of the
teaching and assessment on your programme.
Learning aims and outcomes are listed in module handbooks, and you will be able to judge
your progression towards them through the feedback and guidance you receive from
academic staff. The skills you develop through academic learning and assessment also
transfer to other areas. For instance, oral and written communication skills, and the ability
to think analytically and creatively are also relevant to your career and employability.
Engaging in PDP will enable you to enhance your learning, and to track, record and
understand your academic performance, progression and achievement. It will also enable
you to relate your academic skills to your career and personal aspirations, providing a clear
structure and purpose for your academic learning.
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Career and Employability
Employability is about more than just getting a job. It’s about having, and being aware of,
the attributes and skills that will enable you to pursue your chosen career.
Employers expect you to be able to define and understand the skills and attributes that you
have and to communicate and give evidence of them in job applications and at interviews.
Engaging in PDP enables you to reflect on your skills and attributes, developing your ability
to communicate and provide evidence of them to your current and prospective employers.
You will become aware of the term “graduate attributes” during your course of study. These
attributes and skills are developed through personal, academic and work experience and
will help develop your employability. Typically, a UWS graduate is:
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commercially aware with an appreciation of organisational culture and processes
an independent and lifelong learner
a skilled communicator
an analytical thinker and problem solver
able to work in a team
knowledgeable in their subject
an efficient planner and organiser
IT and information literate
self reflective and able to evaluate performance
a socially responsible and participating citizen
Information on career opportunities is available from the Careers and Employability Service,
as well as resources and advice to help you with your career planning.
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What is Reflection?
Reflecting on your experience is central to the process of PDP. Reflection involves thinking
deeply about your actions so that you can act with more insight and effectiveness in the
future.
Reflective thinking can be an everyday activity, without a structure or formula. We reflect
on a wide range of everyday problems, situations and experiences when we process our
thoughts, feelings and emotions about them. As a result, we might choose to do something
differently in the future.
Deeper and more structured reflection involves ‘standing back’ from an event or experience
and thinking carefully about what happened; sorting out what took place and exploring it in
depth in order to improve or change something for next time. The key elements of
structured reflection involve;
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‘standing back’ from an experience to gain a clearer view or perspective
making sense of your actions and experience and finding meaning in them
repeatedly reviewing your experience to gain a broad view and ensure that no
aspects have been missed
being honest and acknowledging things that may be difficult to admit in the normal
course of events
‘weighing up’ an experience by taking everything into account rather than focusing
only on the obvious factors
gaining deeper learning, understanding and insight about an experience
making judgements and drawing conclusions to move on, change or develop a new
approach. 1
This deeper way of processing thoughts and feelings can be applied to a wide variety of
situations in your personal, academic and professional life, and may be carried out using
models of reflection that ask particular questions to guide and structure your reflection.
Question based reflection involves asking yourself questions about an event or experience,
such as:
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How did it go? How do I feel about it?
What went well or OK? Why?
What was not so good? Why?
How could this have been done differently?
What should I change or work on for next time?
What would be the first step to making that change?
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Adapted from; Reflection [Leaflet, Online] Available: www.qmu.ac.uk/els/docs/Reflection.PDF
[Accessed: 1st August 2012]
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These questions are designed to help you to stand back from and acknowledge your feelings
about an event or experience; to identify what went well and focus on positive in addition
to the negative aspects; and to help you to develop a problem solving approach rather than
avoiding difficulties. The questions also provide a structure to assist you to record, review,
evaluate and plan for your learning and development.
You can also use less structured open reflection approaches such as:
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Brainstorming
Network diagrams or mind mapping
Free writing (stream of consciousness approach; writing as thoughts develop)
Drawing diagrams or images
You will engage in various academic, personal and work learning experiences during your
time at University. When you engage in reflective thinking as part of your PDP activities
and/or assessment, you will record thoughts, ideas and evidence of learning related to these
experiences. You will review what you did in the past, what you’re doing now, and what the
outcomes were or are likely to be. You will evaluate and judge these outcomes, deciding
how to develop and improve on your performance. You will then re-set your objectives and
make detailed plans on how to achieve them. Reflective thinking is an integral part of each
stage of this process.
The process of PDP is represented in the diagram below:
Figure 2: The Process of PDP
Engaging in this process will enable you to become;
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more self aware
more aware in your assessment of your abilities and skills
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more able and willing to act on constructive feedback
more open to and curious about different approaches
more motivated to improve
more able to be an independent learner and
more confident about your abilities and skills
PDP at UWS
Personal Development Planning (PDP) is an integral part of all programmes at UWS. Your
school will plan PDP activities, and will decide exactly how and when these activities will
take place and what support will be provided.
There are also a variety of resources, some of which are available online, which help you to
reflect on, record and present your achievements. The University’s Virtual Learning
Environment (Moodle), e-portfolio tools (Mahara and Campus Pack) and the MyLinC (My
Learning in Context) suite of resources (available on Moodle), contain a wide variety of
resources to support your PDP and reflection, develop your employability and graduate
attributes, and provide guidance on the construction of your ePortfolio. Your lecturers will
guide you on how to access and use these resources.
What is an ePortfolio?
A portfolio is a collection of evidence of your personal and professional development. You
can gather evidence from a wide range of situations, work placement reports, coursework
assessments, skills evaluations, personal reflections and statements, and plans for future
development.
Your PDP activities will involve the construction of an e-portfolio which will contain evidence
of your learning and development. The process of creating the portfolio is just as important
as the portfolio itself, as the process of collecting evidence and preparing it for presentation
requires you to:
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Reflect on your personal, academic and professional development, and
Decide what you should include in your portfolio
These processes help you to think about your past and current experience and formulate
plans for your future development. Your ePortfolio will contain evidence from a wide range
of situations and you can:
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Add content such as text and pictures
Add content in standard templates designed to record your personal goals and carry
out skills assessments
Link to files and web pages
Allow people who view your portfolio to add comments
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Share your ePortfolio with academic staff, other students and people external to the
University.
The Benefits of Engaging in PDP
Effective engagement with PDP enables you to recognise, evaluate, develop and give
evidence of your learning, skills and abilities. It helps you increase your awareness of
teaching and learning strategies and how these relate to your own learning style. It helps
you to understand the value added through learning, and become an independent and
autonomous learner, with the ability to relate what you learn to your personal and
professional life. Engaging in PDP helps you to plan your personal, academic and career
progression and development.
Producing an ePortfolio provides you with a valuable collection of evidence to use when
writing application letters, CVs and when completing job application forms. The process of
collecting this evidence will also build your confidence for job interviews as you will be more
aware of the skills and attributes you have, and therefore be more able to clearly express
them to potential employers.
The ultimate responsibility for deriving benefit from the PDP process rests with you, and
regular engagement in the process is necessary for it to be effective.
The information in this guide provides an introduction to the process of PDP. Your School
and Programme will have detailed plans regarding what they want you to do and what
support will be provided.
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