Personalized and Mastery-Oriented Design

Personalized and Mastery-Oriented Design groups approaches that restructure the pace, content or assessment of instruction around an individual student's own readiness or demonstrated competence, separate from a technique built around group activity. Belongs here: Differentiated Instruction, in which a teacher deliberately varies content, process, product or environment to match a given student; Mastery Learning, which holds that a student should reach a high level of competence in one unit before advancing; Competency-Based Education, which assesses students against predetermined competencies rather than time spent in a course; and Universal Design for Learning, a framework for flexible learning environments accommodating individual learner variability. Does not belong here: a group-oriented active-learning technique such as Cooperative Learning, grouped under Active and Experiential Learning Strategies, and an equity-focused approach centered on culture or identity rather than pace or competence, grouped under Equity and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy.