Objective: The goal of the course is to review contemporary theory, research, and methods that will give you deeper understanding social and emotional development, especially during childhood.  We will do this in two main ways:

1) Every week, we will address one or two critical questions related to topics such as early interaction, the origins of individual differences, early interaction, emotional development, the origins and consequences of secure attachment, the origins of intentional communication, sibling and peer relationships, the development of gender differences, and intimacy. These critical questions are contained in the syllabus.  My lectures - most of which will be available on-line - will focus on these critical questions, as will your readings. Using these resources, you will, each week, hand in a 250 word answer to one of the week's critical questions. 

Readings on these critical questions come from original research articles (typically available on-line from the syllabus) and chapters  which will be made available in class). We will also discuss and debate critical questions these issues, watch videotaped examples, do small group exercises, in-class projects and quizzes to deepen our understanding of what babies are all about. Attendance is mandatory. 

2) FINAL PROJECT. This course has a large research component in which you will be reading original empirical articles. You will also conduct a small empirical study as part of the class. For your final project, you will choose one of the course critical questions - or one of your own choosing that you ok with me. The basis of your final project will be a critical reading the scientific literature. This will culminate in a 2,000 word critical literature review summarizing and synthesizing five or more articles and/or reviews on a topic of your choosing in social and emotional development. (It is a good idea to use readings from the class syllabus for your final project, but these do not count for your five readings.) I will provide several of these articles/reviews and you will provide several that you ok with me. The basis of this project will be writing summary/critiques of these individual articles/reviews that you will turn in throughout the semester. I will help you with the selection of articles and with instruction on how to summarize and critique them. Assigned articles for summaries will often be important to your projects but will not count as one of your five articles. 

Sources for papers for the final projects. Unless ok'd by me, every empirical paper that you review should focus primarily on social and emotional development and be published in one of the following journals: Child Development, Infant Behavior and Development (through 1999), Infancy, Developmental Psychology, Developmental Review, Developmental Psychopathology, Pediatrics,  Social Development, Journal of Family Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, or the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. If you know what journal an article is in, you can also go to specific journals at http://www.library.miami.edu/ejournals/psychology.html (some of these links may not work off campus). Most of the PowerPoint lectures contain a list of helpful references as the final slide. Also, see the "References" section (p. 415) of Development for finding specific articles and chapters on a particular topic. To search for literature on a particular topic, go to http://www.library.miami.edu/research/psychology.html and selecting Databases->Psychology->Psychinfo . More references for final projects are on the syllabi of my graduate student courses which you can find here). (You can go to http://www.library.miami.edu/remote.html to learn more about doing it from off-campus.) References from UM faculty are available at http://scholar.library.miami.edu/facpubs02

As part of your final project, you will conduct an empirical investigation to get a sense of what the topic is really about. You will be responsible for conducting a small scientific investigation. Depending on the topic, I will help provide resources for this empirical investigation. (A final project which is a formal empirical investigation is also a possibility, particularly for those of you conducting relevant research with psychologists in the department.) 

Different people learn differently and excel in different areas. You will present your final project as a brief PowerPoint lecture to the class as a poster at a class poster session, and as a traditional paper. At the end of the course, you will know how to investigate an interesting subject in psychology by reviewing the scientific literature and will have experience in presenting your work in different forms. You will have an opportunity to read studies and make observations that are of special interest to you.

You can expect that this will be a difficult class (honors credit is available). You can also expect that I will word hard to help you learn as much as you can, to be available to meet and to respond to your emails, to return your assignments in a timely fashion, and to help you tackle the new material you will be encountering.

Grading. Assignments will typically be assigned a percentage grade from 1 to 100 or 1 to 5 (where 1=20 and 5=100). Occasional assignments will be graded pass/fail. You will receive feedback on your writing assignments. Your final grade is based on 3 components. In addition to turning in your assignments when they are due, you are responsible for collecting all your written work in an individual portfolio.
 

I. Being in class on time, participating in large and small group discussions, in-class assignments, and participation in the class listserve. Quizzes and final.	25%
II. Weekly writing assignments.	35%
III. Written, oral, and poster presentation of your final project (including empirical project).	40%

This course will abide by the UM Honor Code: "On my honor, I have neither given nor received any aid on this paper."

Nitty-Gritty

Writing (Writing Resources). All written assignments should be in complete sentences and use a terse style in which every word helps make your point. You should use the stylistic guidelines found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4th or 5th ed.) which is in the library and the bookstore. These will be particularly important for citing references and preparing bibliographies when you are writing your article summary/critiques and your empirical research reports. How to cite articles for your final projects and writing in general.

Lateness Policy. All papers received before the start of the class period in which they are due but before the start of the next class will receive a maximum of 50% credit. After this point, no credit will be given for a late paper. If an emergency prevents you from handing in an assignment, please provide me with documentation from a relevant professional (Dr., ER, therapist, etc) to have the lateness of the assignment excused.

(BlackBoard). Your first assignment involves submitting a question on the BlackBoard Bulletin Boards. 

Email (BlackBoard). Use BlackBoard to email all students in the class, myself, and the Teaching Assistant simultaneously. In general, use BlackBoard to ask and respond to questions about the reading, assignments, whatever is relevant to what we are studying. WHEN YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR ME THAT MIGHT BE HELPFUL TO OTHERS, EMAIL IT TO EVERYONE AND I WILL RESPOND. If you send me an email which does not contain personal information, I will forward it to the class. Participation in this class-wise email exchange is a form of class participation and will count toward that segment of your grade. I will not be able to accept any documents that contain computer viruses.

You will need to be able to both send and receive emails from me (check MyUM/EASY to make sure your email is current). I will use this service for class-wide updates such as revised instructions on assignments, and feedback on your work. To receive these updates, you will need to have an email account that you regularly check, which is registered with the University system. To do this, go to the Easy system (Https://easy.miami.edu/easy/signon.asp), log on, click on student records, click on update/enter email info, and then click on the "Update/Get Email" button below the text in the middle of the screen and enter the email address where you want to get University and listserve email. Do the same thing if you do not have an email address and you can obtain one on the same page. An alternate site for registering your email address so that you have access to the listserve is http://www.miami.edu/bb/sttech (for our course, only the three essential activities listed on this site are important).