Northern Arizona University
Personalized Learning Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What are the goals of the Personalized Learning initiative?
a. To enable motivated adult 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.
b. NAU became a leader in distance learning to meet the Arizona Board of Regents
mandate that has been included in different forms in the mission of NAU for over 30
years: to serve the rural and underserved populations of Arizona.
c. Personalized Learning supports that mission by focusing on adults with a broad range of
experience and competencies who otherwise would not have access to a degree
because of family, work and community responsibilities. For them, the cost and time to
complete the degree are the greatest barriers. It would have been wonderful for them
to have experienced the hallowed halls of a great traditional university like NAU, but
that time has passed for them and many never had the opportunity in the first place.
They cannot quit their job, move their families to Flagstaff and have the traditional
college experience.
2. How are the quality and rigor of the Personalized Learning degree programs assured?
a. Lead faculty in each degree discipline develop and refine the degree programs with
support from existing NAU faculty and an industry/discipline advisory board.
b. Faculty curricular approval is through the existing Extended Campuses Curriculum
Committee, the Associate Vice President, Senior Vice President, President, and the
Academic Affairs Committee of the Arizona Board of Regents.
c. The Personalized Learning Board is appointed by the president and consists of faculty
representation from the faculty of the Flagstaff campus, including the Faculty Senate, as
well as faculty from the Extended Campuses division and Personalized Learning.
d. The Personalized Learning Assessment Advisory Council includes membership from
national and NAU experts in assessment of student learning outcomes including the
Higher Learning Commission’s Academy for the Assessment of Student Learning.
e. A national expert in assessment will assure Personalized Learning’s testing reliability and
validity primarily through individual and aggregate reports using Pearson’s enterprise
reporting. Pearson’s LearningStudio has over a decade of data consisting of millions of
student success records that validate new and existing materials. Pearson’s has a
partnership with the start-up Knewton to use their innovative artificial intelligence
system to test student comprehension and provide adaptive curriculum immediately.
f.
Graduate success assessment will be provided by students and their employers for three
years after graduation.
g. Socialization of students is ensured with required service learning and internships.
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h. Fully qualified full-time and part-time Personalized Learning faculty will serve students.
NAU Extended Campuses has about 90 full-time and 450 part-time faculty who teach
each semester in current programs in the classroom and online.1
3. How were the curriculum and courses designed and developed?
a. Using standard NAU degree requirements, NAU lead faculty and support instructional
design staff have deconstructed existing NAU courses, identified their learning
objectives and competencies, and reconstructed highly interdisciplinary competencybased courses that include or exceed all university requirements including some
prerequisite materials for students with deficits.
b. The lead faculty are responsible for ongoing total quality management, finding new
materials that lead to better learning outcomes for each competency.
4. What is the role of Pearson Learning Solutions and their eCollege/Learning Studio learning
management system?
a. Unlike many universities, NAU does not use “canned courses” or substantial parts of
existing Web courses in the Pearson library. Those courses and materials are designed
as traditional three credit hour Web courses on a single subject. One of the
distinguishing features of Personalized Learning is that the courses are interdisciplinary
and of varying lengths from one to twelve credit hours. No commercial provider has
existing courses that fit the Personalized Learning model.
b. Pearson Learning Solutions provides support for implementation under the direction of
NAU faculty. The course learning objectives and competencies are defined by NAU.
NAU faculty are responsible for identifying the best learning materials from sources
including Cline Library collections and licensed databases; Pearson and other textbook
and mass market publishers; free open educational resources (OER) including materials
from prestigious universities such as MIT and Stanford; and materials from the Web.
The Gates Next Generation Learning Challenge grant requires that 25% of the materials
be OER. Most of the materials from Pearson have been developed specifically with
NAU.
c. Our lead faculty work with a NAU instructional developer and instructional developer
teams provided by Pearson.
d. The eCollege Learning Studio learning management system was chosen because it
includes the capacity for learning analytics that guide a student to the modality in each
competency that is predicted to enable that specific student to learn the concept most
effectively and efficiently. The integral Learning Outcomes Management system
provides tracking and data for assessment at the course and program level.
1
Sample part-time faculty qualifications: Faculty X: PhD., Public Administration, Arizona State University, Tempe,
AZ. Dissertation: “Comparing and Analyzing the Design and Effects of Undergraduate Higher Education Strategies
in Four Southern States”, MPA, Bachelor of Science, Economics. 19 conference presentations. Faculty Y: EdD.,
Northern Arizona University—Educational Leadership—Interdisciplinary: Criminal Justice, Business Administration,
Political Science, Education Leadership. M.Ed., B.A., holds multiple law enforcement certificates and leads officer
training throughout the state. Faculty Z: JD, Ohio State University College of Law, BS, Civil Engineering, practices
with a mid-sized law firm in Phoenix, AZ.
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5. How is accessibility for students with disabilities accommodated?
a. Accessibility has been a major focus of our efforts with Pearson. All NAU faculty and
staff involved in curriculum development in Personalized Learning have participated in
training with NAU Disability Resources.
b. A style guide with accessibility guidelines was developed at the start of course design
and is used by all NAU and Pearson personal working on Personalized Learning.
c. Since the Flagstaff campus uses the Pearson My Labs products, Pearson accessibility is a
university wide concern.
d. We are in the process of hiring a Personalized Learning accessibility staff member to
assist with addressing accessibility in the development of the degree programs.
e. Unlike some institutions that adopt pre-produced courses, Pearson provides staff to
develop highly customized courses for NAU.
6. How can a four-year degree program be accomplished in less time with the same learning and
experiential outcomes?
a. The purpose of NAU’s Personalized Learning degrees is to allow an adult student to
learn and advance at their own pace. For some students, the degree will take more
than four years, for others it will take less. We anticipate the average student will finish
in three and a half years studying fulltime year-round. It is interesting to note that the
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) says that the average student (57% in
2011) in a four-year program takes six years to complete. Some students at NAU
Flagstaff currently finish in three years.
b. While some traditional students may find Personalized Learning attractive, we believe
most will opt for NAU’s more traditional options: the beautiful Flagstaff campus,
classroom-based cohort programs at one of our 37 instructional sites in Arizona or one
of our 60+ online programs.
c. Using standard NAU degree requirements, we have deconstructed existing NAU courses,
identified their learning objectives and competencies, and reconstructed highly
interdisciplinary competency-based courses that include or exceed all requirements
including some prerequisite materials for students with deficits.
d. Pre-assessment of students’ knowledge of subject matter before they start a course and
post-assessment with a required minimum 86% test score assures that the required
learning is accomplished. Mastery assessments are available for students who want to
earn an “A”.
e. If a student is proficient with required knowledge/competencies, then it is a waste of
their time, reduces their motivation and likelihood of graduating, and costs both the
student and the taxpayer more if they are required to sit through an entire semesterlong class.
7. Does Personalized Learning emphasize the discipline at the expense of the liberal arts?
a. Personalized Learning degrees have the same strong liberal arts requirements as all NAU
degrees. By design, the Personalized Learning degrees exceed those requirements.
b. Philosophically, we believe that the liberal arts are a key component of a truly educated
and active citizenry.
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c. We also know that employers want broadly educated employees who know their
discipline as well as having the ability to converse on other topics to form the
relationships that make companies and organizations successful.
d. Pragmatically, our faculty want these degrees to be excellent in the liberal arts as well as
in the discipline.
8. How much interaction will there be between students and faculty?
a. Every student has a primary faculty mentor in his/her degree discipline whose sole
responsibility is to ensure that the student is successful academically. The mentor does
this by focusing primarily on student subject matter mastery, but also on study skills,
learning strategies, school/life/work balance, time management and other factors.
b. The student and faculty mentor meet one-on-one as often as needed, but initially at
least weekly. Once a student is making good progress, at a minimum they will meet
every two weeks.
c. A student/mentor appointment is typically 30 minutes long, but for a complex issue
longer appointments will be scheduled.
d. Mentor faculty members in disciplines outside of the Personalized Learning degree
programs will be available to work with students to help them master university degree
requirements such as general education/liberal studies and math.
e. The student and faculty mentor choose the method of meeting which may include faceto-face, video conference (Skype or similar), audio (phone or Internet) or e-mail.
9. Will a Personalized Learning student be able to transfer easily to another baccalaureate program
or be accepted to graduate school?
a. Personalized Learning courses consist of existing deconstructed NAU three-credit-hour
courses. The student record will include a traditional transcript as the student
completes the requirements for a given three credit hour course. The traditional
transcript will allow for ease of transfer to another institution to complete a
baccalaureate degree and ready acceptance by graduate programs at other institutions.
b. The student record will also include an enhanced transcript that will detail skills and
competencies that employers in the student’s field have identified as key to success
such as field specific competencies, communications, teamwork, and problem-solving.
10. How will federal financial aid (Title IV) be administered?
a. Federal financial aid will be provided under the credit hour definition.
b. Since all Personalized Learning courses are developed from existing deconstructed NAU
courses, the amount of student work required reasonably approximates the
requirements of those courses.
11. How can NAU offer Personalized Learning at a tuition of $5,000 per year?
a. The Arizona Board of Regents has mandated that each university provide lower cost
options for students.
b. Personalized Learning has been designed from the ground up to be sustainable at
$5,000 per year. We don’t know if we can maintain that low cost until we reach a
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substantial student base. We know that if the initial tuition rate is higher, it will be
unlikely that the tuition will be reduced in the future.
12. What parts of Personalized Learning are different than what NAU is already offering?
a. Currently offered options that are the same as Personalized Learning: comparable
emphasis on liberal arts, credit for prior learning (AP, CLEP, DANTES, ACE), online
courses, low cost tuition (NAU-Yavapai has a lower tuition ~$4,800), easy transfer to
another institution, federal aid under credit hour rule, comparable rigor.
b. New components of Personalized Learning: self-paced, open-entry/open-exit, multiple
modalities for a student to learn each concept, mentor faculty, enhanced transcript, no
electives, adult primary target demographic.
13. How long has NAU been planning the Personalized Learning program?
a. In early 2011, NAU faculty and staff started discussing new models of providing access
to a lower cost baccalaureate degree using learning and innovation theory, technology,
unbundled human resources, and the learning experiences of the institution.
b. In late 2011, NAU had developed the concept for Personalized Learning and applied for
a Next Generation Learning Challenge grant funded by the Gates and Hewlett
foundations. That grant was funded in the summer of 2012.
c. President Haeger discussed Personalized Learning at numerous meetings including in
President’s Cabinet, open campus forums, the Strategic Planning and Budget Committee
and at Arizona Board of Regents meetings.
d. Personalized Learning has been in the implementation phase since February of 2012 and
plans to admit the first students in January 2013.
e. Enrollment is projected to be 8,000 within five years.