The up side is you know in advance exactly what you need to do and the time required for each grade. This comes out to a 3.15 or so g.p.a. In some classes I do not have exams, rather there is a class project that is graded by a client and by myself. The individual effort and performance of the students is assessed by the student project leaders. In this type of teaching environment I encourage students to apply what they have learned to date.
Students make mistakes, fall flat on there rear ends and get very frustrated.
Then a wonderful thing happens, the material, approaches, problems and solutions start to come into focus. The students have created something out of their own minds, experiences and education. As your instructor, my function is two fold. First I am there to allow you to have a very hard time, subject yourself to some small failures, get really pissed off and in general hate me for not holding your hand and giving you a check list to follow. My second function is to act as an arbitrator of conflict and sounding board for ideas.