Eh. I teach introduction to web development at the college level. All of the assignments are project-based (each week the students build a web page starting out with just html, then adding css, then adding JS, then AJAX, then some simple server-side code, etc.).
They are clearly not interested in the subject. Why are they there? Are they just taking this class because they are pursuing the money in IT or is it peer pressure? The problem can possibly be solved if the root cause is studied
> Why are they there? Are they just taking this class because they are pursuing the money
Yes. Having a piece of paper makes you more qualified when competing against thousands of people. Of course you can do other things to make yourself stand out by showing off your projects you've worked on, but that's a lot harder than gaming the system to get good grades.
As it stands now, a college degree is just a qualifier that tells companies "this person is willing to play the game that current society has established, and will make a better employee than those that aren't willing"
You know your class better than I do, but the main guy I learned project-based learning from, Chris Lehmann, differentiates between a project, which is open-ended and no one knows where it will lead, but starts with the student creating it, and a recipe, where you know the result. He talks about these things in his TEDx talks http://joshuaspodek.com/inspiration-in-education. I hope I'm not asking too directly, but are you assigning projects or recipes?
the biology courses were all sit down and listen to a lecture and write a test.
the art courses were very hands on and I had to initiate what I wanted to do within the confines of the assignment. And most importantly there was critique.
I think what makes a project a project is the ability for it to be critiqued by your peers and the instructor. It’s also much more engaging than sitting down and being quiet and watching an instructor say words for an hour or so.
I graduated with both degrees, but remember wishing more of my biology classmates had the experience of being in classes where there was the element of critique.
how do you grade? If my professor was grading based on picking a random PR/commit and asking me to talk through the problem and changes, I don't think i could pull off cheating
Yet, cheating is still rampant.