I took an intro digital photography class last semester, but the hands on focus of the class was more on the "digital" aspect rather than the "photography" aspect. (i.e.: photoshop layers, masks, curves, levels, color correction, color profiles, etc.) There was discussion of basic technical photographic principals (pretty much the basics of exposure) as well as some history of photography and ethics/legal issues surrounding photography today, but there was zero actual hands on instruction of photography. I'm assuming they save that for the intermediate/advanced classes?
One thing I did enjoy about the class though is open lab hours in the classroom with unlimited access to large format printers, paper, and ink 