Northern Arizona University Launches Competency-Based Online Degree Program

[sanantone]

I have a feeling NAU is being inundated with emails after the posting of this thread. :p I got an answer to my question.

I know the competency-based approach to Personalized Learning is new and can be quite confusing. I’m going to try to explain this model as best I can, but I am always available for questions.



In Personalized Learning NAU traditional courses are broken up into lessons. Each lesson consists of a pretest, topics, a posttest and mastery. You will have one attempt at the beginning of each lesson to pass the pretest with an 86% or higher. If you successfully pass the pretest you are not required to take the topics or posttest. If you are unsuccessful in your one attempt at the pretest then you can choose which topics to take to help you achieve success in the posttest. The posttest can be taken as many times as needed to achieve an 86%. Just passing the pretest or posttest will give you a “B” for a grade in that lesson. You will have the option after passing the pre or posttest for each lesson to pursue a mastery, which in turn would allow you to earn an “A” in the lesson. Pretest, Posttest, and Mastery can be papers, projects, short answer tests, etc- really any assessment the faculty has selected to ensure you are proficient in the content.



So as you can see this model allows students to receive a 4.0 GPA if they choose to master all lessons, but no less than a 3.0 GPA. There are no pass/fail courses in Personalized learning as we did want to ensure this program would prepare students for competitive graduate programs. Please let me know if you have additional questions, or if you would like me to explain this in more depth. Thanks!