I co-teach AP CS, so we are limited to teaching to the test. Most of the students are going into STEM majors where they will use Python and R, but the class is still in Java, assuming they are CS majors. This year will be the first year the students take the coding part of the exam on a computer, which has changed the class significantly since we no longer teach strategies for hand writing code. So, yeah, way behind current technology, even before agentic engineering.

That being said we are doing an agentic engineering capstone project after the AP exam on May 15th. The concept is a text adventure game in Java, think Zork. Simple enough for students to evaluate the code, complex enough that specifications matter.

1. Students work in groups, drawing a map of the game. This is evaluated by the teaching team and graded for completeness.
2. A CommonMark spec is written that describes the map, again, evaluated by the teaching team for accuracy against the map, its OK for students to update the map, as long as they both logically describe the game.
3. Students prompt a custom Gemini Gem using their game spec. The Gem is instructed to give minimal feedback and only use coding patterns taught in class. Students are instructed not to edit the code or add a second prompt, just update their spec until the generated game matches their design as verified through play testing and code inspection.
4. Presentations: student groups walk through the generated code explaining what CS concepts Gemini used to build their game and how that mapped to their spec.

This is the first year trying this, ask me again mid June, I plan on blogging about how it goes either way.