Northern Arizona University
Personalized Learning
Northern Arizona University’s Personalized Learning enables motivated students to earn a high-quality degree more
efficiently and at a lower cost by customizing coursework to fit individual learning styles and previously acquired
knowledge.
Personalized Student Experience
Personalized Learning offers an innovative, online, self-paced and competency-based baccalaureate degree
program. After admission, students complete a pre-assessment (like a final exam) before starting each course.
Students may test out of as much of the content as their prior learning allows. Students are then provided a
personalized path through that course to learn the competencies that they have not yet mastered. Each
competency required for the course is provided in different modalities (video lecture or documentary, text,
simulations, games). Multiple modalities ensure that every student has several opportunities to learn the material,
so that they do not fail to acquire competency in that concept, and subsequently do not fail to learn other concepts
that build on the first. If, after exhausting all the modalities, students do not understand the concept as indicated
by their performance on assessments (typically writing assignments or quizzes) they may contact their discipline
mentor faculty member for assistance. The mentor faculty member monitors each student’s progress and
intervenes if a student is not proactive in seeking assistance. At the end of each course students use a graphical
dashboard to decide when they are ready to take the final assessment/exam. Students must score an 86% to finish
the course and receive a “B.” Students cannot fail a course; instead, they simply return to the course and study
longer. Students may complete additional requirements to earn an “A” and honors on their diploma. A final
assessment compared to the pre-assessment provides a record of what the students learned (not what they already
knew). In addition to discipline mentor faculty, Personalized Learning provides a mentor coach faculty member to
every student to ensure they are successful. Internships and service learning provide job skills and socialization.
Every student has two transcripts: one is the traditional official institutional transcript with standard three-hour
courses that is most useful if a student wants to apply to graduate school or transfer to another institution; the
second is an enhanced transcript that describes the skills and competencies employers want.
Personalized Curriculum
The first three baccalaureate degree programs are in the liberal arts, computer information technology and small
business administration. The curriculum is developed by lead faculty in the disciplines, with support from
instructional designers and technical staff. All university degree requirements are met as required by university
policy and the faculty as a whole. The lead faculty deconstruct current NAU courses down to the learning outcomes
and concepts levels. The courses are rebuilt as interdisciplinary courses of varying length from one to 12 credit
hours. The lead faculty are responsible for ongoing total quality management, finding new materials that lead to
better learning outcomes for each competency. Pearson publishing provides support for implementation and the
learning management system that includes learning analytics to guide a student to the modality in each
competency that is predicted to let the student learn the concept most effectively and efficiently.
Personalized Business Processes
The business processes are innovative and personalized. Students may start any day of the year and their
“semester” or enrollment term is six months from that date. National research indicates that the longer students
attend college the less likely they are to graduate. Personalized Learning uses a subscription model like Netflix
where the student completes courses at their pace, to encourage completing as many courses as possible in each
semester leading to accelerated completion. The cost to the student is $2,500 per 6 months and is all inclusive (no
extra costs for fees, textbooks or materials). Financial aid will be available. Formal transcripted learning including
transfer credits, ACE, CLEP, DSST and AP is transferable to Personalized Learning.
Aggressive Timetable
Northern Arizona University is aggressively implementing Personalized Learning with a January 2013 start date.
Enrollment goals are 500 students in the first year and 8000 students within five years.