Welcome to McGraw-Hill’s Multimedia Courseware for Child Development! The materials on these CD-ROM disks will enable students to see for themselves, rather than simply read or hear about, important research methods and classic studies in the field of child development. In addition, a comprehensive testing package will allow instructors to assess the quality of student learning. Multimedia Courseware for Child Development has been designed to be easy for instructors to use while it enhances both the depth and the range of experiences offered to students.

A perennial challenge in teaching child development is that many students have had little or no experience with children. As a result, they often have difficulty visualizing many of the phenomena of interest, and this limits their comprehension of developmental processes. The use of line drawings and still photographs in textbooks (or their presentation via chalkboard or overhead projector in class) can convey information, but lacks the immediacy of full-motion video and sound presentations that contemporary multimedia techniques make possible. Lengthy commerical videotapes present relevant material, but disrupt the continuity of lectures and discussions. Multimedia Courseware for Child Development addresses these issues by providing students with full-motion video demonstrations of key experiments and significant phenomena which they can view as they read the text, and review as many times as they wish. Using Multimedia Courseware for Child Development, instructors can give their students the advantages conveyed by contemporary multimedia techniques while still retaining the basic structure and organization of their existing course materials.

In this brief introduction, I describe the general and specific features of Multimedia Courseware for Child Development, and suggest some ways in which it can be used in different kinds of classes.

GENERAL FEATURES

Here are the features that are available at all times to the user of Multimedia Courseware for Child Development, on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Contents. Materials have been arranged in chronological order on the CD-ROM disks, so that all the videos on infancy come before the materials on childhood. On the McGraw-Hill website, however, a topical table of contents is available for Multimedia Courseware for Child Development, for those instructors who prefer a topical organization.

Video. The key elements of Multimedia Courseware for Child Development are the video segments illustrating important experiments and crucial phenomena in the field. The video segments can be accessed via the chronological table of contents that extends along the lefthand side of the screen. Alternatively, by clicking on the term Video on the toolbar at the top of the screen, the video segments can be accessed directly.

Key Terms. Important terms that may not be recognized by students are defined in an online glossary. When the student comes across an unfamiliar key term (underlined in the text), a click of the mouse brings the term’s definition onto the screen. Alternatively, by clicking on Key Terms on the toolbar at the top of the screen, the entire list of key terms can be displayed.

Help. By clicking on the Help icon (on the toolbar at the top of the screen), students can get help with any feature of Multimedia Courseware for Child Development.

Exit. By clicking on the Exit icon on the toolbar at the top of the screen, one exits the program.

SPECIFIC FEATURES

When one begins with the chronological table of contents, and selects a video, a series of other features become visible. These are all part of a toolbar that extends along the lefthand side of the screen. It includes the following icons:

Test Your Knowledge. A pair of true-false questions allows students to test their knowledge of the material in this section before viewing the video. When students click on their answers, boxes pop up that contain correct answers and explanations. This feature is intended to provide an involving interactive way for students to begin getting engaged with the material in each section.

Developmental Charts. Developmental charts allow students to match major achievements of a period or area with the approximate age ranges of which they are characteristic, or to match terms with their definitions. After students have completed the charts, they can click on icons which allow boxes to pop up, containing the correct answers. Students can complete these charts as many times as they wish. These charts can also be used as exam questions, if the instructor so chooses.

Video. By clicking on the Video icon on the lefthand toolbar, students bring up a screen that contains a brief introduction to the video segment they are about to see. By clicking the Play Video icon, students start playing the video. Video segments appear automatically in a pop-up Windows Media Player window, which can be re-sized to cover the entire screen or only a small portion of the screen. By clicking the Show Transcript icon, students can view a word-for-word transcript of the audio portion of each video.

Follow-Up Questions. By clicking on the Follow-Up Questions icon, students bring up a set of five multiple choice questions about the video segment they have just seen. As the students mark their answers, pop-up boxes give instant feedback about the correctness of their answers. There is also a Score Test icon that, when clicked, calculates students’ scores on the 5-item exam, and presents them instantly in a pop-up box. There is also a Clear Answers icon which allows students to erase their previous answers so as to answer the questions again.

Apply Your Knowledge. By clicking the Apply Your Knowledge icon, students bring up a set of three open-ended questions about the video segment they have just seen. They can type very brief answers in the space allowed, and print them using buttons on their browser, or they can write longer answers on separate sheets of paper. There is also an icon at the bottom of this screen called Clear Answers that allows students to erase anything they have written and begin again.

Related Research. By clicking the Related Research icon, students bring up two or more citations to research that is related to material shown in the video segment. Students with a special interest in a particular area can use these citations as starting places to explore the research literature.

Projects to Try. By clicking the Projects to Try icon, students can bring up two or more ideas for further projects related to the material in the video. Some of these involve interviewing or watching infants, children or adolescents. Others draw on personal experiences, or involve using the resources of the World Wide Web or of their college or university library. All of them are intended to assist students in gaining greater insight into the topic of the video.

SUGGESTIONS FOR USE

Instructors will think of many ways to use the materials included in Multimedia Courseware for Child Development, and there are probably as many different ways of putting it to use as there are instructors who will use it. In my own course, I ask students to view two or three video segments each week, and write brief answers to each of the Apply Your Knowledge (open-ended) questions. They are to bring their written answers and share them in the context of weekly discussion section meetings. They are also asked to complete one of the Projects to Try and submit a brief written report of their results. Students are not specifically required to complete the Follow-Up Questions (multiple choice questions) for the video segments they watch, but they are advised that some of these items will appear on their actual exams for the course. In this way, the Follow-Up Questions serve as a list of study questions for those students who wish to use them in this way before each exam. I also show many of the video segments in class, as part of my lecture presentations. There are many other ways to make use of these materials. What follows are some initial ideas and possibilities.

Weekly Video Viewing Assignments. Students can be assigned to watch the videos that correspond to the material under study each week. For instance, when studying the Newborn Infant, students can be assigned to view videos on Childbirth and Behavior of the Newborn. This can be done by each student at home, or in a computer lab.

Video Segments Shown in Class. Each of the video segments can be shown and discussed in class, as part of lectures or other presentations. Most are brief (i.e., between 2 and 5 minutes in length), and so they can be used to illustrate an experiment or a phenomenon without breaking the continuity of a presentation.

Follow-Up Questions. By clicking on the Follow-Up Questions icon, students can take an interactive exam, consisting of five multiple-choice items, that tests their knowledge of the material in the video they just watched. After marking their answers, students receive immediate feedback about the correctness of their answers. These questions (or a subsample of them) can be viewed by instructors as a test bank, and some or all of them can be included on actual exams for the course. If done with advance warning to students, the procedure of using some of these questions on exams allows students to study a list of questions, knowing that some will appear on the exam. This can help students to become familiar with the multiple choice question format, reduce anxiety, and provide additional incentive for students to pay close attention to the contents of video segments.

Weekly Written Assignments. After viewing the video segments, students can be assigned to write open-ended responses to the Apply Your Knowledge questions, and bring them to class for discussion. For classes that have separately scheduled discussion sections, this could work well as framework for weekly discussions.

Individual Projects. Students could be asked to complete one or more of the Projects to Try, and report back to the class on their findings. This could be done as a course project, to be submitted at the end of the term, or it could become a larger part of the course if students are asked to complete two or three such projects during the term. Giving students the freedom to choose among more than 60 such projects allows them the opportunity to pursue their own particular interests in the framework of the course.

Related Research. Students could be asked to locate, read, and critique items listed under the icon for Related Research for one or more video segments. Students could give their reports orally in class, or in written format, as best suits an instructor’s aims.

Developmental Charts. These interactive charts, found at the Developmental Charts icon for each topic, allow students to rehearse some important factual knowledge relevant to the course material, and to receive instant feedback as to the correctness of their answers. They can also be lifted out, to use as exam items, if instructors are so inclined. If students know in advance that some of these charts may appear on their exams, this may encourage students to pay close attention to the material included in them.

Many other uses for these materials will surely be envisioned by creative instructors. Feedback about particularly effective uses of the materials, as well as about ways to improve Multimedia Courseware for Child Development would be welcome. In the meantime, happy viewing!