Extra credit assignment due Monday October 30

Professor Jenny Saffran

Office: Room 528 Psychology

Office Hours: Tuesday 4:30-6:00 and by appt.

Phone: 262-9942

Email: jsaffran@facstaff.wisc.edu

Teaching Assistant: Erik Thiessen

Office: Room 630 Psychology

Office Hours: Wednesday 10:00-12:00 and by appt.

Phone Number: 262-1568

Email: edthiessen@students.wisc.edu

Is the infant's world a "blooming, buzzing, confusion" (as per William James), or do infants enter the world prepared to organize and make sense of their physical and social environments? How can we disentangle the contributions of nature and nurture, and then understand how they interact during development? What changes over development, and what remains constant? What are the implications of early development for later adaptation or dysfunction? These and many other questions will be addressed as we venture into the minds of children.

Required Textbook: Shaffer, D. R. (1997). Developmental Psychology (5th Ed).

Grading for Psychology 560 will be based on one quiz (10%), two midterms (25% each) and the final exam (40%).

September 6: Overview of the semester

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September 11: What is development?

Shaffer Ch. 2

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September 13: Research methods for developmental psychology

Shaffer Ch. 1

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September 18, 20: Biological foundations & prenatal development

Shaffer Ch. 3, 4, 5 (p. 167-186 optional)

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September 25: Quiz, followed by infant sensation & perception

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September 27, October 2: Infant sensation and perception

Shaffer Ch. 6

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October 11, 16, 18: Cognitive development

Shaffer Ch. 7, 8

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October 23, 25, 30: Language development

Shaffer Ch. 10

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November 1, 16, 8: Emotional development

Shaffer Ch. 11

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November 15, 20: Self and social cognition

Shaffer Ch. 12

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November 27, 29: Gender-role and moral development

Shaffer Ch. 13, 14 (p. 587-593 optional)

December 4, 6, 11: Atypical development

TBA

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December 13: Concluding issues

Review Shaffer

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Contacting us: Both Erik and I are looking forward to meeting each of you over the course of the semester and to helping you with questions about course-related material. To help me respond to student questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible, the following email policy must be adhered to:

Any student with a conflict between an academic requirement in this course and any religious observance will be given an alternative means of meeting the academic requirement, with two qualifications: (1) students must make requests to the instructor in writing by September 20, 2000; (2) reasonable limits will be set on the total number of days claimed by any one student. Students who will require special testing conditions this semester because of a learning or physical disability must notify the instructor and provide written documentation -- a McBurney center VISA -- by September 20, 2000.

Review sessions will be held prior to all three exams.

Academic dishonesty: No cheating will be tolerated, and breaches of academic honesty will be pursued with the university committees charged with prosecuting academic dishonesty.

Make-up exams: The only acceptable reasons for missing an exam are illness or family emergencies; a written note from your doctor or your family’s doctor will be necessary. All make-up exams will be essay exams. There will be no make-up exam for the final exam.

Final exam: Because of this size of the class, requests for alternative test dates cannot be accommodated. After the final exam is scored, you may retrieve your grade through the WWW or UW touch-tone system. To protect everyone's privacy, grades will not be posted, given over the phone, or distributed by email.

Grading: Unless a majority of students object, grading will not be on a curve. This means that you are only competing with yourself, not with your classmates. We encourage you to study together and discuss course material in groups outside of class. Grades will be as follows (percentiles):

A (92 - 100)

AB (88 - 91)

B (82 - 87)

BC (78 - 81)

C (70 - 77)

D (60 - 69)

F (0 - 59)

1. Please note the Class Box in the back of the room. After any lecture, please feel free to write a short note telling me about anything: (a) you found particularly interesting or exciting about the day's lecture; (b) you found unclear or confusing about the lecture; (c) you would have liked to ask, but didn't get a chance to. You may also comment upon aspects of how the class is going. These notes may be anonymous; because you are a large group, it's my way of checking in with you to see how things are going.

(3) If we make a mistake on an exam question and you correct the mistake (with documentation or a citation from the text or a scientific article), you will receive double credit for that test item.

4. No make-up credit is available for students who miss in-class exercises.

(5) Please use your best judgement when speaking in class. We want to encourage your questions and comments, but try to police yourself if you find that you are commenting very frequently; given the size of this class, we need to be sure that everyone who wants to speak gets a turn.

5. The College and Psychology Department require that the following statement be included on all syllabi: "Occasionally a student may have a complaint about a T.A. or course instructor. If that happens, you should feel free to discuss the matter directly with the T.A. or instructor. If the complaint is about the T.A. and you do not feel comfortable discussing it with him/her, you should discuss it with the course instructor. If you do not feel the instructor has resolved the matter to your satisfaction, then you should speak to the Psychology Undergraduate Advisor, Ms. Arlene Davenport (room 428 Psychology) or the Department Chair, Professor Janet Hyde (room 238 Psychology). You should also speak to either of these individuals if the complaint is about the instructor and you do not feel comfortable discussing it directly with him/her.