Professor David Moore
108 Broad Hall
Office extension: 71648
E-mail: dmoore@pitzer.edu

Pitzer College
Psychology 199
Seminar in Child Development*
Spring, 2009

Below is some important information regarding this course. I am currently working as a visiting researcher at Kumamoto University in Japan, and will be doing so through the second week of classes this semester. Please feel free to contact me via email at dmoore@pitzer.edu with any questions you have about the specific details of the course. Even though I am not able to be there for our first 3 class meetings, I have made other arrangements for 2 of those days. The first day of class (Wednesday, January 21), Ken Ollitt will be on-hand to steer students to this syllabus, and explain my absence. There will be no class on Monday, January 26, but on Wednesday, January 28, my colleague Mita Banerjee will be in class to lecture on a topic related to this course. Please plan on attending this session. I look forward to meeting with you all on Monday, February 2.

Class will meet on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00 p.m. - 1:10 p.m
All class meetings will be held in Bernard Hall, room 207.

My OFFICE HOURS will be on:

Thursdays from 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm

If I need to change these as the semester's schedule becomes clearer, I'll obviously let you know. Also, if by any chance this turns out not to be enough, I'll certainly arrange for others. In addition, I'm free to be scheduled -- in fact, if you'd let me know that you'd like to come in to talk, that would be even better for me. Under any circumstances, I'll be in my office or lab lots, so you can just drop on in.

Between the first and second classes, please look over the list of topics and vote for the 20 you would most like us to cover in the class (i.e., please send me an email with your top 20 choices). I'll then send around (via email) a list of the winning topics and ask everyone to choose the topics they would most like to present. Topics will be assigned on a first come, first served basis; do be aware that there is no guarantee that the topics you choose will be the topics you’ll present.

Each topic will be discussed across two class periods, and two students will be assigned to work together in preparing to lead the discussion on each topic; each student will be expected to lead class on one of the two days. The final list of topics we will cover will be listed on the syllabus. Depending on how many students enroll in the course, you may be asked to present in multiple weeks.

Here is what you can expect to do during (and before!) the week(s) you will be presenting:

• You will be responsible for leading the discussion on the day assigned to you.
• Together with your co-presenter, you will be responsible for finding two or three articles (20 - 25 pages max) relevant to the topic we will be discussing on your assigned days. You will need to have gotten my approval for these articles by 12:00 p.m. one full week before you and your co-presenter will be presenting, so you should plan to be in touch with me about them at the end of the previous week (approximately 10 days before your team will be presenting).
• You will be responsible for getting the chosen articles delivered to me (in a PDF file-format...if you have only a paper copy of your article, you will need to scan it into a digital file) by noon, one week prior to your team's presentations.
• You will be responsible for emailing a copy of each of your chosen articles to the other students in the class.
• During the final 10 minutes of class on the Wednesday before your team's presentations, you and your co-presenter will be asked to offer your classmates helpful reading hints about the articles the two of you have chosen.

Finally, every day we meet, each student NOT presenting that week will be asked to proffer at least one question that came to mind while checking out the assigned readings (see requirements for more information). These questions should be submitted (72 hours prior to class) to our Sakai Web Site, to help the student who will be leading the discussion prepare for the task.

A FINAL NOTE:
Come to class armed with your questions and ideas about the readings. Share your ideas and thoughts with the rest of us. In a seminar, participants learn from each other, so it will be important for everyone to put themselves out there, think out loud, and basically just let it fly. Don't just be a sponge; this course will fulfill its potential only if everyone contributes to the collaboration.

*Do not be fooled by the title of this course (which is a generic title chosen by the Pitzer College Psychology Field Group for any of a variety of courses on this topic). This course will focus exclusively on development during infancy.