Background

MyPlan was developed prior to the promotion of a Personal Learning Plan (PLP) by the Future SACE Office. MyPlan is a tool for use by students to build skills in goal setting and strategic planning and to manage an electronic portfolio which can be flexibly produced in various formats for various purposes.

The PLP is a subject taught to students as part of stage one of the new SACE “to help students make informed decisions about their personal development, education and training”.  It aims to enable students to develop knowledge and skills to:

• “Choose appropriate subjects and courses for their SACE”
• “Review their strengths and areas for development, including literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills”
• “Identify goals and plans for improvement”
• “Monitor their actions and review and adjust plans as needed to achieve their goals.”

Students will generally “start their PLP in Year 10 so that they can plan for successful, relevant SACE learning in Years 11 and 12”. 

MyPlan has been designed as a tool to be used by students from  Year 7 or 8 through to Year 12 and beyond.  It can be started at any time (the earlier the better) and maintained as a work in progress to a stage appropriate for each year level.  It can be used by teachers as a tool or framework to deliver the PLP subject.  This paper sets out the relationship between the content of the PLP and the relevant components of MyPlan.

Learning Activities

The draft working paper states that the PLP requires teachers to “plan and implement a structured program of learning” which is likely to vary between schools.  It identifies a set of common elements and suggests “further possibilities as starting points”.  Teachers are required to devise programs that support and teach students to:

• “develop, use, monitor, review and adjust their plan”
• “develop literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills”
• “identify their own learning strengths and areas  for development; these include their capabilities and literacy and numeracy skills as well as other knowledge and skills needed to pursue particular pathways through education, life and careers”
• “research options and preferences for employment, study, training and community participation using expert resources”
• “identify goals to build on their strengths, address their challenges and develop their capabilities”
• “work towards making their future options become a reality”.

MyPlan introduces planning principles using the “Demming”  PDCA cycle from page 13 to page 20. 

The instructions which are included with every page and which can be accessed in the “notes” view, give examples of goals using the guiding principle of having very goal start with the words, “To have ….” or “To be ……”.

The goals which can be identified by students as early as Year 7 are revisited throughout MyPlan.  The PDCA (plan/do/check/act) cycle is applied at regular intervals depending on the nature of the goal.  For very long term goals (”To be the owner of a large house in a seaside suburb within 15 years”) an annual cycle would be appropriate, while a shorter term goal (“To have an after-school part time job in retail by end of  next month”)  would  require a weekly or even daily PDCA cycle. 

The MyPlan PowerPoint template introduces students to basic planning concepts including financial planning and career interest identification at Year 8.  Students who start MyPlan in later years will also complete the same elements as Year 8 students; but will progress further, stopping only when they have reached a level appropriate for their year.  In this way, Year 10 students will have set, reviewed and adjusted goals (PDCA), made sound choices (including identifying career interests) into their SACE program and beyond.

MyPlan can be thought of as a cyclical process, with students progressing around the PDCA cycle at frequent intervals and with increasing success as goals and strategies are evaluated and modified.

Students who  start MyPlan in Year 8 will move on to a formal evaluation of their learning styles in Year 9.  Students who start MyPlan in Year 10 will have started at the same point as Year 8 students but will need to progress more rapidly completing the Year 8 and Year 9 elements before describing in detail their Community Services and Work Training and Experience.  In Year 10, they  build on the earlier elements to  “research options and  preferences for employment, study, training and community participation” while continuing to use the PDCA cycle to link both long and short term goals, build on their strengths, address their challenges and develop their  capabilities.

These stages of MyPlan provide a foundation for a planned future through years 11 and 12 and beyond into further study and employment as well as other personal ambition and achievement.

How Teachers Use MyPlan in Delivering the PLP

MyPlan was initially designed to be student owned not unlike the way teenagers use and develop skills in Web2 programs such as MYSPACE and FACEBOOK.  PowerPoint was chosen because not all students have comparable access or skills in the Web2 world.  PowerPoint does not require students to be accessing the internet in a classroom situation with all the usual distractions of games, blogs etc.  It is also widely understood by secondary students, most of whom have gained competency in PowerPoint at primary school.

The set of MyPlan files is normally loaded to a folder or directory on the school network which can be accessed by students but to which they cannot save files.  Students are therefore forced to save their own MyPlan in their own network space or in their own USB device or MP3 Player.

Students work at their own pace in MyPlan with maximum ownership of the appearance and content.  The training videos (short Quicktime movies) which are made available on the school network, allow students to solve problems without interrupting others in the class.  As students reach the identified “stop” signs in MyPlan appropriate for their year level, they can either go back to earlier stages to reiterate the PDCA cycle or, if completing SACE stage 1, prepare a version of MyPlan to present for assessment.

While students are working through MyPlan at their own pace, the classroom teacher will be offering encouragement and direction.  Students in SACE stage 1 will also be participating in a selection of the learning activities outlined in the PLP working paper.  What these activities are can be directed to the student’s learning style which is identified in the Year 9 section of MyPlan at page 30 to 32.  MyPlan is ideally suited to a one-to-one mentoring role but is also adaptable to group work and other learning styles that are appropriate to the student. 

Student progress through MyPlan can be easily monitored is various ways:

• Students can save copies relevant pages of their MyPlan in their “submitted work” folder on their “H” drive which is opened and reviewed by the teacher at specified times. OR
• Students produce a PDF file from their PowerPoint version of MyPlan and email it to the teacher for review.
• Portable media
• Students save a copy relevant pages of their MyPlan on a USB memory stick and pass it to the teacher to open and review.
• Students “burn” a copy of relevant pages of their MyPlan to optical media such as a CD or DVD disc and pass it to the teacher for review.
• Paper
• Students print their MyPlan in PowerPoint using the “print handouts – six per page – pure black and white” print options.
• Students print a few selected full pages (using the “black and white” print option) to show progress and key items in their MyPlan.