In the present study, we examined whether students' academic success in courses devoted to Arabic and Islamic culture changed when the familiar face-to-face delivery format (before the COVID-19 pandemic) was discarded in favor of an online synchronous delivery format (during the pandemic). The final class grades of students enrolled in one of four courses in a sequence devoted to Arabic culture and religion were compared while holding constant the variable instructor. The ability of early performance indicators to predict final class grades was also examined to assess whether there were differences between instructional deliveries. Superior performance and lower failure rates were observed.