Our Philosophy

Online education at NLU is hands-on and it's exciting! Teaching and learning at NLU is evidence-based and it is geared to meet the needs of our unique student population. Our core values at NLU are access, innovation, and excellence. We serve a diverse student body with diverse, knowledgeable faculty trained in leading-edge teaching practice.

Access is at the heart of everything we do. We believe that all students deserve access to an affordable, rigorous, supportive, bachelor’s degree education that leads to sustained professional success. Part of this recipe for success means making sure that our faculty come to our students with deep work experience, in addition to rigorous academic preparation--we want faculty that “walk the walk” and “talk the talk”. We want our students to learn from the best--YOU! We also know that a focus on access may mean that some of our students come to us not always believing in themselves and their abilities. In response to this, we provide a series of wraparound supports to help our students get to their final destination--a degree and a fulfilling career. We want to see our students make a difference in their families, communities, and the world. That is why our approach to teaching and learning is unlike any other.

Here is what makes us different:

• High-touch approach to academic advising: our Student Success Coaches and Academic Advisors provide unparalleled support to students, following them from the beginning of their path at NLU all the way to graduation and careers.

• Ongoing collaboration with Learning support: our Learning Support Specialists provide added academic support to ensure students receive individualized learning support from expert specialists.

• High-impact, high-engagement approach to instruction: our faculty are deeply engaged in their teaching practice and in the success of their students. They approach student support from a strengths-based perspective, working with students one-by-one to reach their potential.

• High-touch approach to faculty support: each course you teach at NLU has a “course owner” and a course template, to ensure the content is up-to-date and relevant and to support faculty in teaching today’s 21st- century learners.

In order to be so unique, our classes don’t look and feel like what you might see elsewhere.

Here are some differences:

• Open Education Resources: as an institution focused on access, if a course does have a textbook we have done our best to ensure it is a low-cost one, supplemented by free and open-access resources especially curated by our subject-matter experts and esteemed faculty.

• Project based learning: most of our courses work toward a culminating project whereby learnings and artifacts from previous coursework lead to a portfolio-type of capstone or internship.

• Authentic Assessment: our courses have a focus on authentic assessments meant to intentionally demonstrate student competency.

• Evidence-based curriculum: our course designs are based on proven learning theory and incorporate newer pedagogical trends in trauma-informed practice, early brain development, and culturally responsive teaching.

Collaborative learning: students learn in a variety of ways, and at NLU we recognize this. We facilitate learning by helping our students learn from inquiry, collaboration, and practice. Students often work in small groups, and then practice what they learn in class in the field and/or draw from their own experiences to co-create new knowledge in our online classrooms. And, most importantly, students learn by reflecting on what they learn and build upon it through new and scaffolded experiences term-by-term.