Developing students’ professional skills using PDP and self-coaching techniques

Tracy Johnson, University of Bristol

This presentation describes and evaluates the teaching of professional skills to Computer Science undergraduates through an accredited Career Management Skills Unit run at the University of Bristol.  This unit has been running for nine years and has been significantly re-designed since the advent of PDP to include a greater emphasis on self-management, reflective learning and professional development.  In its evolution from a course focusing on theoretical models of career management and skills development to a new emphasis on PDP that allows individual learners to focus on their own needs, we have seen not only greater take-up of the unit, but a significant increase in the number of students using this course to facilitate finding work experience, securing interviews and developing their self-confidence and motivation.  The unit has become a mechanism through which students can take tangible steps towards employability and employment, acquiring the tools they need for lifelong professional development.

The presenter is both a higher education lecturer in academic skills & professional development and a qualified personal coach, and has seen some success in the ‘rebranding’ of PDP with students as ‘self-coaching skills’.  The fundamental PDP processes of self-assessment, goal setting, action planning and reflection can be seen to map clearly onto established coaching techniques and, when presented as established skills used within the professional environment, seem to appeal to students more than the ‘recording achievement’ approach.  The presentation will consider how successful this ‘rebranding’ of PDP has been with students on the Career Management Skills Unit, using feedback and material produced from the students as part of their reflective learning assignment.  The presentation will also introduce questions for discussion such as:

·         How can we use career management models to ‘professionalise’ students?

·         How can PDP be presented as a tool for professional development?  What should we call it?

·         How can we present reflective learning to students as a practical tool for professional development, rather than an abstract concept?

Key words  – PDP, coaching , self-management, professionalizing students

Presentation