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Impact on Cost Savings Penn State University Were costs reduced as planned? The planned redesign of Elementary Statistics at Penn State was carried out with a few changes that affected the savings calculations. First, the initial plan extrapolated savings expected during the academic year to the summer sessions. But in the summer, GTAs teach the course instead of full-time instructors. The planned savings were therefore overestimated by about $12,700. Second, part of the plan was to reduce the number of GTAs from 12 to 6. In fact, GTA workload declined to the point that the department decided to assign each GTA three lab sections instead of two. This change reduced the number of required GTAs in the course from 12 to 4. (A portion of these savings is being used to train two future GTAs each semester, an unexpected bonus.) Third, course enrollment in the fall and spring terms increased by a total of 240 students. The net result of the latter two changes is to reduce the cost-per-student in the redesign from the planned $123 to $98, a 44% savings over the cost-per-student in the traditional course. Thus, the actual annual savings will be about $148,080, as compared with the original projection of $116,600. Were the university to teach the additional 240 students in the traditional model, the cost of the course would be $429,440 compared to the actual redesigned course cost of $239,120, a $190,320 difference.
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Program in Course Redesign Quick Links: Program In Course Redesign Main Page... Lessons Learned: Savings: Project Descriptions: |
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