A large public university is considering a proposal to convert its largest introductory courses, those with more than two hundred enrolled students, from in-person lectures to fully online, asynchronous video lectures, while keeping smaller weekly discussion sections in person. Proponents argue that online lectures let students watch at their own pace and rewatch difficult sections, free up large lecture halls for other uses, and allow the university to hire fewer lecturers for large introductory courses without increasing class sizes further.
Based on a one-semester trial converting one large introductory course to this format, the university's academic committee has concluded that converting all large introductory courses to this format would improve average exam scores and reduce the university's costs for large-course instruction, without reducing student satisfaction with the course.