Question

A local university is considering changes to its class structure in an effort to increase professor productivity. The old schedule had each professor teaching 5 classes per week, with each class meeting an hour per day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each class contained 20 students. The new schedule has each professor teaching only 3 classes, but each class meets daily for an hour. New classes contain 50 students.
a. Calculate the labor productivity for the initial situation (students/hour).

b. Calculate the labor productivity for the schedule change (students/hour).

c. Are there any ethical considerations that should be accounted for?

d. Suppose that each teacher also is required to have 2 hours of Office Hours each day he/she taught class. Is the schedule change a productivity increase?

Answer 1

Answer:

a) 20 students / hours

b) 50 students / hours

c) Yes, as this means the class is crowed making more difficult for the sudent to learn or participate in the class activities. Leaving to students dropping the course as they can't ask the teacher all they need to ask or don't ear the professor or see the whiteboard clearly from afar.

d)

old)   6.67 students per hour

new)  16.67 students per hour

Explanation:

We are given already with the amount of students per calss and, as the class last an hours this value is, the productivity of labor

a) 20 students / hours

b) 50 students / hours

d)

20 students  / (1 hours class +  2 hours office) = 20/3 = 6.67 students per hour

50 student / (1 hours class +  2 hours office) = 50/3 = 16.67 students per hour