[pjscott]

I was a TA for a freshman college class that would deliberately give homework assignments on things not covered in lectures. We were told to direct the students to resources that would help them learn these things, but not teach them directly. You should have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth! The general consensus among those students a few years later was that they were glad for the wake-up call: most things you'll have to learn are not entirely handed to you in class, and the sooner you learn to get on with your life in such a world, the better off you are.

(We down-weighted those assignments in the grading, of course, so that people with GPA requirements for scholarships didn't suffer.)