Welcome to Applied Developmental Psychology!

As part of The Developing Child minor and program, our goals in this course are to:

1. 1. 1. Support students' confident engagement with the language, concepts, and products of developmental science. To this end, students collectively annotate and explore foundational weekly readings on Perusall.
      2. Build students’ capacity to pose and pursue answers to developmental questions and to serve as a resource to their communities. To this end, students develop skills identifying independent and dependent variables, articulating empirical hypotheses, and searching high-quality research databases for literature relevant to specific research questions. 
      3. Contribute to the foundation for later-week application courses. To this end, students write and administer quiz questions to regularly review the previous weeks' material, and develop accessible visual presentations of developmental data and methods. 
      4. Cultivate an appreciation for processes and forces of change and learning in human life. To this end, students are encouraged to track their continued learning as adults by adding new words and concepts to the Course Lexicon.

Each week we will look at a new developmental domain, asking: 

1. 1. 1. What is the relevant locus of change in this domain?
      2. What has empirical research in this area focused on, and what picture do we have from it?
      3. How has empirical research tackled this topic/what methods have been used to give us insight into this area?
      4. What do we still not know, and how can we — as individuals and as a scientific community — find out more?

Weeks 3-6 will focus on empirical observations and theories regarding infants and toddlers from birth to age 3. Weeks 8-11 will revisit the same developmental domains, this time centering preschoolers and children ages 3-8.

We will support your Projects for Change and your development as scholars more generally by working on information literacy skills related to building the empirical basis to motivate a particular hypothesis or intervention. In terms of final products, we will work on constructing an annotated bibliography for your PfCs, comprised of the strongest empirical support for your projects. You will submit your bibliography in stages, and support each others' refinement through peer rubric reviews. Read more about annotated bibliographies here, and see a student example here.

A final project specific to this class will be announced after the Week 7 break, and will consist of a combination of group and individual work. You shouldn't feel concern about preparing for it in advance, and focus instead on keeping up with the readings and showing up your fullest to class each week — for your sake and for the sake of the learning community we're creating.

If you have questions about any of the assignments for each week, please post to the 142: Dev Psych Discussion, so that all students may benefit from the response. If you'd like to come to my office hours to ask your question in person, I'll be on gather.town each Thursday, from 2-4pm. I look forward to seeing you there!