Pastoral and Academic Support through PDPStuart Cross

PDP for advising

PDP in The Law SchoolFirst used 4 years agoEmbedded and assessed in a level 2 moduleLaw became involved in the Universitys SHEEN funded Employability and Professionalism project

SHEEN ProjectA small number of pilot projects were developedLaw developed the LEAP programmeThis integrated a range of existing activities and allowed us to trial PDP as a support mechanism for advising meetingsTrial ran for one yearKey lesson-too many templates

2008-2009A revised approach building on LEAPFocus in levels 1-3 on transitions and advising meetingsLevel 4 linked to dissertation and supervision meetings

Level 1Standard entry through My DundeeBlackboard portalTwo templates each semesterBoth linked to timing of advising meetings

Level 1Level 1 templates included focus on personal as well as academic skillsGenerated some very frank comments and feedback

Level 2Greater reflective focus in relation to transition between years and preparedness for what lay ahead

Level 3Much greater emphasis on career issues and strategic issues for level 4 such as module and dissertation choices

Timing Issues

Lessons The linking of completion and sharing of templates with advising meetings was very effective for someA proportion of students simply did not engageCompletion % lower than when we used PDP as an embedded toolWorked best at levels 1 and 4

Next StepsLaw Society of Scotland is moving to a new competence based approach which will require a change in our curriculumWe will use a greater level of module level embedded PDPBUT retain key transition templates to coincide with advising meetings