Personal Success Plan (PSP)
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Personal Success Plan (PSP) · Renzulli Learning
The Renzulli Personal Success Plan (PSP): A Portfolio of Durable Skills Evidence for Every Student
Think, Dream, Plan, Succeed. The PSP turns self-knowledge into action — students identify strengths and interests, set meaningful goals, and build a living portfolio of durable skills evidence that grows with them. Executive function, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication — assessed, developed, and documented in one place. Whether your district is implementing a Portrait of a Graduate framework or aligning to career-readiness standards, the PSP makes those competencies visible, measurable, and actionable for every K-12 student.
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See the Personal Success Plan in Action
A short demo of how the Renzulli Personal Success Plan helps K–12 students Think, Dream, Plan, and Succeed — building the goal-setting, executive function, and career-readiness skills that matter in an AI-accelerated world.
What Is the Renzulli Personal Success Plan (PSP)?
The PSP is where assessment data becomes action and action becomes evidence. It’s a living portfolio of durable skills that grows with each student — from their first Profiler results through years of goal-setting, project completion, and skill development. Think of it as the student’s personal record of who they are, what they’re building, and how far they’ve come.
The Renzulli Personal Success Plan (PSP) turns self-knowledge into action. Students identify strengths and interests, set meaningful goals, and build the durable human skills — executive function, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication — that set them apart in an AI-accelerated world.
Why Does PSP Matter in the Age of AI?
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs reports consistently rank analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience, self-efficacy, and lifelong learning among the top skills employers will demand through 2030. College admissions officers increasingly prize evidence of student agency, goal-setting, and authentic accomplishment over GPA alone. And CTE coordinators need students who can plan, persist, and present professional-quality work — exactly what the PSP cycle builds.
What the PSP Develops
Weekly goal cycles (plan → do → review) grow focus, time management, and follow-through — the exact EF skills the Renzulli Executive Function Assessment measures.
Structured prompts and product menus develop original thinking; creativity can be assessed with the CTC and reinforced through project-based learning.
Interests connect to high-demand pathways (including AI-impacted roles), with next steps in coursework, CTE, internships, and postsecondary options.
Students see progress, revise strategies, and tell their own story with evidence — building the metacognitive ownership that Renzulli calls “task commitment.”
How the PSP Supports Your Portrait of a Graduate and Builds Durable Skills
States like North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia, and South Carolina — along with hundreds of individual districts nationwide — have created Portrait of a Graduate frameworks that bridge K-12 education and workforce readiness. These frameworks emphasize durable skills: the transferable, human-centered capabilities that endure across careers, industries, and economic shifts. According to America Succeeds, seven of the ten most requested skills on U.S. job postings are durable skills. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report found that 9 of the top 10 most in-demand skills are future-ready skills and interpersonal competencies.
The challenge every district faces is moving a Portrait of a Graduate from vision to practice — from a framework document into daily teaching and learning. That is exactly what the PSP does:
| Portrait / Durable Skill | How the PSP Builds It |
|---|---|
| Critical thinking | Students analyze open-ended problems, evaluate career pathways, and revise strategies based on evidence — the Plan and Succeed phases embed critical thinking into every goal cycle. |
| Communication | The “My Project” capstone requires students to present their work to an audience — in writing, video, oral presentation, or artistic product — building communication skills through authentic practice. |
| Collaboration | PSP-linked PBL investigations and enrichment activities require teamwork, peer feedback, and shared problem-solving — collaboration as a practiced skill, not an add-on. |
| Creativity | Structured prompts, product menus, and the creative autobiographical project develop original thinking. Creativity is also assessed with the Cebeci Test of Creativity (CTC) and reinforced through project-based learning. |
| Adaptability & resilience | Weekly goal cycles (plan → do → review) teach students to adapt when plans don’t work — revising strategies, managing setbacks, and persisting toward outcomes. This is Renzulli’s “task commitment” in action. |
| Self-direction & agency | Students own their PSP from the first “Think” phase forward. They choose their goals, select their projects, and track their own progress — building the self-directed learning skills that Portrait of a Graduate frameworks universally require. |
| Empathy & leadership | The “My Heroes & Helpers” section develops character reflection, and the “My Project” service option channels empathy into community impact. Leadership is also assessed with the Renzulli Leadership Assessment. |
The PSP doesn’t just align to your Portrait of a Graduate — it operationalizes it. Every durable skill your community has identified becomes a goal students can set, a behavior they can practice, and an outcome they can document in their portfolio. That’s how a portrait moves from the wall to the classroom.
How Does the Personal Success Plan Work?
The PSP follows a four-phase cycle. Each phase builds on the previous one, and the cycle repeats — deepening skills and expanding ambition over the course of the school year and across grade levels:
Think
Dream
Plan
Succeed
Inside the PSP: Six Sections That Build a Living Portfolio
After completing their Renzulli Profile, students work through six structured sections — each designed to deepen self-knowledge, connect interests to real-world pathways, and create a living portfolio of goals and plans:
1. My Interests
Students carefully consider their interests and talents and think about how they connect to careers and future plans — building on the strengths the Renzulli Profiler has already surfaced.
2. My Heroes & Helpers
Students identify people who inspire them — famous heroes and personal helpers in their own lives. They explore both positive and negative characteristics of role models, connecting personal values to leadership and character.
3. My Careers
Students learn about careers based on their interests and begin thinking about the type of work they might want to pursue — including emerging AI-impacted fields and high-demand pathways in CTE, STEM, and the creative economy.
4. My Goals
Students identify long-term and short-term academic and personal goals — setting priorities about what they want to accomplish in school, work, and life. The PSP enables students to create a plan for the next year and the next ten years.
5. My Plans
Students create plans with concrete steps, activities, and timelines to achieve their goals. PSP artifacts align easily to counseling and ECAP/ILP requirements — ready for conferences, college applications, and CTE portfolios.
6. My Project
Students complete a creative autobiographical project that integrates everything they’ve learned about their interests, role models, and careers. This can be a short-term assignment or a capstone project — a personalized piece of writing, scrapbook, artistic product, video, or presentation.
Why the Teacher’s Role in the PSP Is Critical
The teacher’s role in using the Renzulli Learning PSP is critical. When teachers effectively use the PSP, they develop the kinds of personal relationships with students that make career planning realistic and effective. The PSP enhances personal relations between teachers and students as learners consider social and academic goals and planning together.
“Every teacher has the rare opportunity of making an important difference in the lives of young people with whom they work. The PSP was designed to help you make that difference. In the years ahead you could be one of the people that young people will remember as an important ‘helper’ on their road to a more successful and happy future.”
What Does the PSP Provide for Educators?
The PSP gives teachers, counselors, and administrators actionable tools — not just another platform to manage:
PSP + Project-Based Learning = Future-Ready Students
PSP anchors rigorous, real-world projects in every grade band. Students analyze open-ended problems, iterate solutions, and present professional-quality products — exactly the kind of human work that complements AI rather than competes with it. The PSP provides the goal-setting, planning, and reflection structure; Renzulli Learning’s PBL tools and enrichment database provide the content and activities.
Implementation in 3 Steps
1. Activate
Turn on profiling and PSP for a class, grade level, or entire school. Students complete the Renzulli Profiler and relevant assessments.
2. Pick a cadence
Weekly check-ins for sustained skill-building, or unit-based milestones for project-driven classrooms. Both work; the Roadmap guides your choice.
3. Showcase outcomes
Student portfolios and presentations document growth in EF, creativity, and 21st-century skills — ready for conferences, ECAP/ILP, and college applications.
Works as a stand-alone module or alongside the Renzulli Profiler, Creativity (CTC), Executive Function, and Leadership assessments.
The Research Behind the Personal Success Plan
The Personal Success Plan is the digital realization of what Dr. Joseph Renzulli has called the most important goal of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model: “to develop creativity and task commitment traits in individuals who demonstrate above-average abilities or potential.” The PSP’s four-phase cycle — Think, Dream, Plan, Succeed — translates the Enrichment Triad’s Type III goals into a structured, repeatable student experience inside the Renzulli Learning platform.
Key Research Publications by Renzulli, Reis, and Colleagues
Renzulli, J. S. (1978). What makes giftedness? Reexamining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60(3), 180–184, 261. Learn about the Three-Ring Conception ›
Introduces the Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness — above-average ability, creativity, and task commitment. Task commitment is the PSP’s core developmental target: the perseverance, self-confidence, and drive to see a self-selected project through to completion.
Renzulli, J. S. (1977). The Enrichment Triad Model: A guide for developing defensible programs for the gifted and talented. Mansfield Center, CT: Creative Learning Press. Learn about the Enrichment Triad ›
Introduces the three types of enrichment. The PSP maps directly to Type III goals: planning, organization, resource utilization, time management, decision-making, and self-evaluation — pursued inside self-selected investigations where students think, feel, and act like practicing professionals.
Renzulli, J. S., & Reis, S. M. (2014). The Schoolwide Enrichment Model: A How-To Guide for Talent Development (3rd ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press. View SEM research ›
The comprehensive SEM guide documenting how interest-driven, self-directed enrichment — the same approach delivered through the PSP — develops planning, persistence, and creative productivity across all grade levels and student populations.
Reis, S. M., & Renzulli, J. S. (2003). Research related to the Schoolwide Enrichment Triad Model. Gifted Education International, 18(1), 15–40. Read the paper ›
Summarizes research on eight components of the SEM over 20 years — including creative productivity, personal and social development, self-efficacy, and longitudinal outcomes — documenting that the enrichment approach underlying the PSP develops exactly the task commitment, creative productivity, and self-directed learning skills the plan is designed to build.
Renzulli, J. S. (2002). Expanding the conception of giftedness to include co-cognitive traits and to promote social capital. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(1), 33–58. Read the paper ›
Introduces Operation Houndstooth — the co-cognitive factors (optimism, courage, romance with a topic, sensitivity to human concerns, physical/mental energy, vision/sense of destiny) that turn ability into productive accomplishment. The PSP’s “Dream” phase explicitly cultivates these traits.
Renzulli, J. S. (2021). Assessment for learning: The missing element for identifying high potential in low income and minority groups. Gifted Education International, 37(2). Read the paper ›
Renzulli argues that assessment should examine traits like interests, instructional preference styles, preferred modes of expression, and executive function skills. The PSP is the platform tool that translates these assessments into actionable student goals and plans — closing the gap between assessment and development.
Field, G. B. (2009). The effects of the use of Renzulli Learning on student achievement in reading comprehension, reading fluency, social studies, and science. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 4(1), 29–39. Read the paper ›
Cluster-randomized study of 383 grade 3–8 students. After 16 weeks using Renzulli Learning, treatment students demonstrated significantly higher growth in reading comprehension (p < .001), oral reading fluency (p = .016), and social studies achievement (p = .013). The PSP is the goal-setting and progress-tracking layer that makes this kind of sustained, interest-driven engagement systematic.
Reis, S. M., Renzulli, S. J., & Renzulli, J. S. (2021). Enrichment and gifted education pedagogy to develop talents, gifts, and creative productivity. Education Sciences, 11(10), 615. Read the paper ›
Open-access article documenting how SEM-based enrichment pedagogy cultivates the planning, persistence, and creative productivity that the PSP builds — turning potential into productive achievement for all students.
What the PSP Looks Like in Real Classrooms
“The PSP gave my students something I couldn’t give them with grades alone — ownership of their own growth. When a seventh-grader can walk into a parent conference and say ‘here’s what I set out to do, here’s the evidence of what I accomplished, and here’s what I’m working on next,’ you know something has shifted.”Middle School Educator · Renzulli Learning Certified Educator
Personal Success Plan: Common Questions
PSP Resources from Renzulli Learning & UConn
Start with the Roadmap, then explore the platform tools and Renzulli Center research that power the Personal Success Plan.
- Renzulli PSP Roadmap (PDF) — The complete guide for educators, counselors, and administrators
- Start a Free 30-Day Trial — Try the PSP with your students
- Renzulli Center for Creativity, Gifted Education, and Talent Development at UConn
- Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli’s complete publications list
- Renzulli Learning Platform Overview
- Renzulli Learning Research — Evidence base for the platform
- Renzulli Learning Certified Educator Course — Professional development
Explore other Renzulli Learning assessments and tools:
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