---
title: Fresno Professionals Shifting Practices Towards Personalized Learning
description: Fresno collaborating with Education Elements in an 18-month design and implementation process.
---

[Newsroom ](https://www.edelements.com/newsroom)

# [Fresno Professionals Shifting Practices Towards Personalized Learning](https://www.edelements.com/newsroom/kansas-writing-the-school-redesign-manual-0)

 Written by [Tom Vander Ark](https://www.edelements.com/newsroom/author/tom-vander-ark) | Jun 4, 2018 7:00:00 AM

Fresno is a city of a half a million people (twice that in the metro area) in the middle of California's central valley. It's a diverse city with large Hispanic and Hmong populations.

The [Fresno Unified School District](https://www.fresnounified.org/) ([**@**fresnounified](https://twitter.com/fresnounified)) serves 75,000 students, of which almost nine in ten live in or near poverty, in about 100 schools.

 

Fresno has a well developed Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI, #FresnoPLI) developed by CTO [Kurt Madden](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtmadden/) and [Philip Neufeld](https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipneufeld/), Executive Director of IT (featured image in front of the CART career center) in conjunction with the curriculum and instruction unit.

The PLI goal is greater personalized, competency-based learning at and beyond the classroom. The initiative advances student-centered learning focused on #AsYetImagined futures with competencies, content mastery and agency. Neufeld said, "If the shift to digital changes student readiness then so should our models for student preparation." PLI pedagogy is about high-quality instruction with the intentional use of technology, effective use of collaboration while honoring and activating student voice. 

This article originally appeared on Edweek. Access the whole article [here](http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/on_innovation/2018/06/fresno_professionals_shifting_practices_towards_personalized_learning.html).

[View full post](https://www.edelements.com/newsroom/kansas-writing-the-school-redesign-manual-0)

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