Well, there's a bit of both. If I were in the job, I'd be looking at the crap they put on the curriculum, and working out how I could make it engaging and palatable for my students. And I think it's a fundamental requirement, in any learning assignment at any level, that if you ask students to go out and find information, you have to tell them why they are doing it, and what they will then be doing with that information. To give the task purpose, but also to steer their choices in what information they select.

You can't just say 'find things I can do with an egg' and then be disappointed (or angry) when they come back with uses in binding pigments, rather than recipes, unless you tell them what kind of things you were after.