CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
From the June 2, 2000 issue
SYLLABUS
Undergraduates today were raised on video. So, what better way to teach a core
psychology course on child development than with video?
Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia,
has been teaching the introductory class since 1975. It's a standard course
in psychology departments across the country, attracting the second-largest
enrollments after the general introduction to psychology.
This spring, Ms. Patterson began teaching it differently, using a CD-ROM that
she published this year, Multimedia Courseware for Child Development
(McGraw-Hill).
"When you're standing in front of the classroom, talking about the differences
between a 9-month-old and a 15-month-old, you're often seeing blank faces,"
Ms. Patterson says.
"Students don't have much contact at this point in their lives with babies.
They find it really difficult to visualize the material."
She's helping them to do that. Her CD-ROM is packed with videotaped demonstrations
of important experiments in child psychology and talks by leading lights in
the field.
The reading list:
As students read the assigned textbook, Child Development: Its Nature and
Course (McGraw-Hill), they can pop in the CD to see theory in practice.
For example, when they are learning about Renee Baillargeon's classic work on
how infants understand objects, students can watch on their computer screens
as the psychologist talks about her research at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and they can watch her experiments in action.
"It's as though the students are inside her laboratory in Illinois, even though
they're sitting at home in Virginia," Ms. Patterson says. "They can see Carolyn
K. Rovee-Collier's studies of infant memory, for which she's renowned. And they
can hear Jerome Kagan talk about infant temperament."
The assignments:
With 291 students in her spring course, Ms. Patterson relied mainly on exams
to evaluate their progress.
She says the CD-ROM, as well as her use of digitized video demonstrations in
her lectures, "allows me to present a much broader array of material in a much
shorter time. And I think the students find it more interesting and more fun."
Technology, Ms. Patterson says, has enabled her to bring the sights and sounds
of children into the classroom without having to disrupt her classes with real
kids.
The course's syllabus can be found on the World Wide Web (http://toolkit.virginia.edu:80/cgi-local/tk).
Copyright 2000, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Reprinted with permission. This article may not be posted, published, or distributed without permission from The Chronicle.