Georgia State University
Scaling Personalized Learning Across a High-Enrollment Core Course with Skillwell
Story At A Glance
Goal
Improve student engagement and course success in a high-enrollment core curriculum course by delivering personalized learning at scale across thousands of students and multiple instructors.
Solution
Deployed Skillwell’s adaptive learning platform to standardize core course content while enabling personalized learning paths, real-time analytics, and instructor flexibility across sections and teaching styles.
Results
Increased student engagement and preparedness while improving key performance metrics at scale—reducing DFW rates, increasing overall course success, and enabling instructors to deliver more personalized guidance to thousands of students.
Challenge
Personalization at Massive Scale
Georgia State University’s (GSU) Global Issues course is one of the institution’s largest and most complex offerings, enrolling more than 3,000 students each year. The course serves a highly diverse student population with varying academic backgrounds, levels of preparedness, and learning needs.
The scale of the course introduced significant instructional challenges:
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Dozens of course sections
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More than 20 instructors, including graduate assistants
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A mix of in-person and online delivery formats
Faculty struggled to provide individualized feedback and consistent learning experiences at this scale. Encouraging students to prepare for class, engage meaningfully with content, and stay on track required far more visibility and flexibility than traditional course models could support.
GSU needed a solution that could scale personalization without sacrificing consistency, while still allowing instructors autonomy in how they taught their sections.
Solution
GSU faculty implemented Skillwell to power their first adaptive course at scale.
Using Skillwell, faculty designed a shared core course structure that ensured consistency across sections, while still allowing instructors to tailor sequencing, assessments, and pacing to match their teaching styles and classroom needs.
Skillwell enabled:
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Personalized learning paths that adapted to each student’s performance
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Real-time analytics that surfaced student engagement and comprehension
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More efficient, targeted instructor interventions—even in large sections
By combining a common instructional foundation with adaptive personalization, Skillwell gave instructors greater control and insight, despite the complexity and scale of the course.
Results
Results Students Felt—and Faculty Chose
Following the first full implementation across more than 3,000 students, GSU saw measurable improvements in both student experience and academic outcomes.
4%
increase of overall course success rates (C or better)
3000
engaged students moving through adaptive learning
91%
of students said their instructor used Skillwell to provide personalized advice
3%
decrease in DFW rates
4%
increase of overall course success rates (C or better)
3000
engaged students moving through adaptive learning
91%
of students said their instructor used Skillwell to provide personalized advice
Faculty response was equally telling. When instructors were given the option to teach either adaptive or traditional sections, none chose to return to the non-adaptive model—demonstrating strong confidence in the Skillwell-powered approach.
By enabling personalized learning at scale, Skillwell helped Georgia State University transform a complex, high-enrollment core course into a more effective, engaging, and student-centered learning experience.
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