How could we reinvent the Individual Study Plan (ISP) in order to promote students' study planning? What kind of ISP model could truly motivate students?

Based on graduate feedback we know that students feel they should have learned more about project management. That observation led to integrating project planning and management elements with individual study planning into the Personal Development Project Plan (PDPP) in a course setting.

PDPP was co-designed with students. The aim was to design something that would help students track their achievements and plan their personal development, i.e. match personal development with project planning. PDPP puts all the focus on the individual level. Through an iterative and incremental process, students are intended to find their own personal targets and design the means and tools to track how they're advancing towards set targets. We see PDPP as a way to manage the expectations one faces as well as a tool for managing one's well-being.

Through the PDPP process, students learn how they can take ownership of their studies. This should result in students having improved time management skills and the ability to reach 60 ECTS credits per academic year while increasing their probability of completing their degrees in the normative timeframe. These factors are also elements of the university's funding model, thus the use of PDPP could be seen as an investment.

To date, we have early non-formal results indicating that more credits are completed by the students who have participated in PDPP compared to those who have not. Student feedback and teacher observations indicate positive learning experiences and effective learning in extracurricular skills and life planning.