Putting Students on the Map

The paper describes the development and pilot trial of a student self-positioning exercise with third year Design students, which attempted to examine their perceptions of success, and help facilitate a more focused self-directed personal learning plan for their final year programme of study. The paper describes how students were asked to undertake a personal mapping process asking themselves, where am I, where do I want to go, and how will I prove I've got there? The project aimed to help them think about, externalise and verbalise their design interests, general aims and goals for the year and more specifically, the approach they were going to take to their major project. By developing personal mapping and assessment methods to enable students to take control of their lifelong learning, the paper critically analyses and reflects upon how the author helped students write their own personal stories of achievement, and proposes practical pedagogical methods to help enable students to put themselves on the map.