Course Formats and Grading
Every example course in this guide comes with three complete course plans: a one-day classroom bootcamp, a two-week online course and a four-week online course. Each plan has a schedule, graded assignments with rubrics, two capstone projects, recommended texts, further study and the technical prerequisites. This page explains what the three formats have in common, so that the plans themselves can stay short. An instructor should be able to take a plan, adjust the dates, and teach it.
The Three Formats
Classroom bootcamp |
Two-week online course |
Four-week online course |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Instruction |
8 hours |
6 hours |
12 hours |
Lectures |
Six 45-minute lectures (4 h 30) |
Six 30-minute recorded lectures (3 h) |
Twelve 30-minute recorded lectures (6 h) |
Hands-on time |
Four 45-minute guided labs and a 30-minute capstone kickoff (3 h 30) |
Two 90-minute live sessions, one a week (3 h) |
Four 90-minute live sessions, one a week (6 h) |
Student work outside class |
About 6 to 10 hours, for the capstone, in the week after the bootcamp |
About 4 to 6 hours a week |
About 4 to 6 hours a week |
Graded assignments |
Three lab assignments, finished in class |
Three assignments |
Four assignments |
Capstone |
Due one week after the bootcamp |
Presented in the second live session |
Presented in the fourth live session |
The bootcamp’s eight hours fit one long day or two half-days. Breaks and lunch are not counted. Each online lecture is a 30-minute recording that students watch before the week’s live session. The live session is for demonstrations, questions, pair work and reviewing assignments, not for repeating the lectures.
Standard Bootcamp Day
Every bootcamp plan uses the same eleven blocks. For two half-days, split after block 5.
Block |
Minutes |
Purpose |
|---|---|---|
1 |
45 |
Lecture 1 |
2 |
45 |
Lab 1, which produces graded assignment 1 |
3 |
45 |
Lecture 2 |
4 |
45 |
Lab 2, which produces graded assignment 2 |
5 |
45 |
Lecture 3 |
6 |
45 |
Lecture 4 |
7 |
45 |
Lab 3, which produces graded assignment 3 |
8 |
45 |
Lecture 5 |
9 |
45 |
Lab 4, ungraded practice that leads into the capstone |
10 |
45 |
Lecture 6 |
11 |
30 |
Capstone kickoff: students choose a capstone, form teams if allowed, and start work |
Standard Live Session
Unless a plan says otherwise, each 90-minute live session runs as follows:
15 minutes: questions on the week’s lectures, and common problems seen in submitted work.
45 minutes: a live demonstration, then pair or small group work in breakout rooms.
20 minutes: the week’s assignment is started together, so that nobody leaves blocked.
10 minutes: a preview of next week, and an exit ticket (one thing learned, one question).
The last live session of each online course is given over to capstone presentations.
Grading
Grade Weights
Component |
Bootcamp |
Two weeks |
Four weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
Graded assignments |
45% (3 × 15%) |
45% (3 × 15%) |
50% (4 × 12.5%) |
Participation (labs, live sessions, exit tickets) |
10% |
10% |
10% |
Capstone project |
45% |
45% |
40% |
A final grade of 70% or more passes. Bootcamps that award a certificate of completion rather than a grade can use the same threshold.
Reading a Rubric
Assignments are worth 20 points and capstones 100 points. Each rubric lists its criteria and their points, and describes two anchor levels: Exemplary, which earns full points, and Developing, which describes the most common way of falling short. Score every criterion on this four-level scale:
Level |
Points |
Meaning |
|---|---|---|
Exemplary |
100% |
Fully meets the description in the rubric, with no significant errors. |
Proficient |
80% |
Meets the description, with minor errors or omissions that do not affect the result. |
Developing |
50% |
Matches the Developing description: attempted, but incomplete or partly wrong. |
Missing |
0% |
Not attempted, or does not work at all. |
Course Policies
Adapt these to your institution’s rules, and state them on the first day.
Late work. Online assignments lose 10% for each day late, up to three days, after which they are not accepted. Bootcamp lab assignments are finished in class. The bootcamp capstone may be submitted up to three days late for a 10% penalty.
Use of AI assistants. Students may use AI assistants, including coding agents, unless an assignment says otherwise, and must say how they used them in a short note with each submission. They are graded on their understanding, so expect to be asked to explain any line that they turn in. The Agentic Software Development with Claude Code course takes this further.
Evidence of process. Smarter’s journal records every prompt and tool call, so prompt engineering and AI application assignments can ask for the conversation that produced a result. Tell students that their prompts are recorded.
Submissions. Manifests, code, documents and design notes are submitted in a Git repository, one per student or team, with a tag or pull request for each assignment. Slides and videos are linked from the repository’s
README.md.Teams. Capstones may be done alone or in teams of two or three, unless a plan says otherwise. A team states who did what in its
README.md, and each member presents.Personal data. Exercises use invented names and records only.
Before Teaching a Plan
Work through every lab and assignment yourself on the same installation that your students will use, and time it.
Set up accounts, API keys and a Budget for each student, as described in the Smarter Instructor Guide.
Send the technical prerequisites and the installation instructions to students at least a week ahead. For a bootcamp, ask students to prove their installation works, with a screenshot, before they arrive: there is no time to fix laptops on the day.
Record the online lectures ahead of time. A screen recording of the web console, a terminal and the documentation, with a few slides, is enough.
Check that the recommended books are available to students, through your library or a subscription such as O’Reilly Learning, and substitute where they are not.