Pastoral and Academic Support through PDP

Stuart Cross

PDP in The Law School

First used 4 years ago Embedded and assessed

in a level 2 module Law became involved in

the University’s SHEEN

funded Employability and

Professionalism project

SHEEN Project

A small number of pilot projects were developed

Law developed the LEAP programme This integrated a range of existing activities

and allowed us to trial PDP as a support mechanism for advising meetings

Trial ran for one year Key lesson-too many templates

2008-2009

A revised approach building on LEAP

Focus in levels 1-3 on transitions and advising meetings

Level 4 linked to dissertation and supervision meetings

Level 1

Standard entry through My Dundee

Blackboard portal Two templates each

semester Both linked to timing

of advising meetings

Level 1

Level 1 templates included focus on personal as well as academic skills

Generated some very frank comments and feedback

Level 2

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

Level 3

Much 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 some

A proportion of students simply did not engage

Completion % lower than when we used PDP as an embedded tool

Worked best at levels 1 and 4

Next Steps

Law Society of Scotland is moving to a new competence based approach which will require a change in our curriculum

We will use a greater level of module level embedded PDP

BUT retain key transition templates to coincide with advising meetings