My favorite classes (and the ones I've learned the most from) have always managed to balance theory and implementation. The formula has usually been a mix of
1) purely theoretical exercises emphasizing fundamental concepts
2) project-based assignments in which you must understand the theory and write a decent amount of code to apply it. Usually a bunch of code not central to the concepts has already been written for you. But just implementing it is still not enough. To test your conceptual understanding, they ask you to run your code in various situations and explain the results.
Comments
My favorite classes (and the ones I've learned the most from) have always managed to balance theory and implementation. The formula has usually been a mix of
1) purely theoretical exercises emphasizing fundamental concepts
2) project-based assignments in which you must understand the theory and write a decent amount of code to apply it. Usually a bunch of code not central to the concepts has already been written for you. But just implementing it is still not enough. To test your conceptual understanding, they ask you to run your code in various situations and explain the results.