Activity 7.3 - Assessing PDP

Sources

Burgess, Hilary (n.d.) ‘Assessment: 2. Self and peer assessment’, The Higher Education Academy: Social Work and Social Policy (SWAP), [online] Available from: http://sorubank.ege.edu.tr/~bouo/DLUE/Chapter-08/Chapter-8-makaleler/Assessment%202_%20Self%20and%20peer%20assessment.htm (Accessed 4 December 2008).

Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto ‘Teaching and Learning by Health Professionals:
Practical Issues and Approaches - Sample Learning Contract’, Department of Family and Community Medicine - University of Toronto, [online] Available from: http://dfcm19.med.utoronto.ca/GradStudies/CourseMaterials/t&l/learning_contract1.htm (Accessed 4 December 2008).

Make a note of any of these approaches that you think could be applied to your own context of practice.

I'm in favour of the "learning contract" idea and see the list of competencies that we've come up with from Unit 6 becoming very handy for developing such a contract. To support this would require a fairly standard framework (Burgess) that invites the inclusion of still more frameworks / rubrics that the PLOT tool suggests.

This is very similar to a learning contract idea that I saw implemented in an experiential / alternative education program that I was involved in as a Group Leader some 20 years ago (Katimavik in Canada). Here the participants (a small group of 12 young adults) carried out some personal and group reflection exercises .. and then designed their own mission / values statement .. then personal and/or group objectives. They also knew what resources were available to them so they could map out how they might achieve these objectives (i.e. hiring a nutritionist to learn how to eat properly). Assessment? There wasn't any formal assessment..

As I see it, we've potentially got the same thing going on here. We've looked at the mission / values associated with being a learning technologist.. and are asked to review these to come up with a set of objectives that are aligned with that mission / those values and then plot how we might achieve them .. preferably with input and support from fellow group or team members. Assessment? Part of it might include how successfully aligned one's personal development objectives line up with professional and personal values and principles.

On a related note, I've only recently been advocating the inclusion of pdps at my work as a means to aligning faculty and staff development with the University's mission to promote teaching excellence. I see this being realized so that limited resources are aligned to address University directives but at the same time, the professional or personal objectives of an individual.

In effect, the University's governing board outlines its own strategic goals, then invites the various colleges to interpret those goals as well as their own to create department specific "strategic plans". These in turn could be used by faculty and staff to produce their own pdps that address their specific professional needs but align them once again with those of their department. These could then be included as part of one's annual performance review.