Child Development – EDU130

Amplified Course Syllabus

Prepared by Diana Stuart, Education Program Coordinator

January 2005

Week One through Three: Research, Theory, and Biology

Curriculum Content:

·  Theories of Child Development

·  Methods of Studying Children

·  Genetics

·  Prenatal Development

·  Birth

Instructional Goals:

  1. The student will be able to describe passive, evocative, and active relations.
  2. The student will be able to explain the birth process.
  3. The student will be able to differentiate the history and periods of prenatal development. The student will be able to discuss the critical period hypothesis.
  4. The student will be able to explain the basis of biological inheritance.
  5. The student will be able to distinguish the origin of problems in early development.
  6. The student will analyze the basic mechanisms of heredity.
  7. The student will appraise various prenatal assessment techniques.
  8. The student will define the age of viability.
  9. The student will compare the ethical and social issues related to prenatal assessment.
  10. The student will discuss prenatal diagnosis and genetic counseling
  11. The student will analyze the prevention of birth defects.
Mid-Preparation Teacher Education Standards / Standards Addressed
Standard 1.2.1: The preservice teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry and structures of the discipline(s) within the context of a global society and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
Standard 1.2.2: The preservice teacher understands how students develop, and provides learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of students.
Standard 1.2.4: The preservice teacher recognizes the importance of long-range planning and curriculum development and develops, implements, and evaluates curriculum based upon student, district, and state performance standards.
Standard 1.2.5: Standard 1.2.5 The preservice teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking problem solving, and performance skills.
Standard 1.2.7: The preservice teacher models effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. / 





Performance Objectives:

1.  The student will assess information gathered during the three required observations of three different aged children and document the experiences in a reflective paper and presentation.

2.  The student will create an inventory of various prenatal assessment techniques and present the material in a graphic organizer.

3.  The student will categorize causes of birth defects and evaluate preventative measures, presenting the results in an informative, research-based paper.

Standard Number / Performance Indicators
The Preservice teacher: / Indicators Addressed
1.2.1 / ·  Knows the discipline application to certification area(s);
·  Presents the subject matter in multiple ways:
·  Uses students’ prior knowledge;
·  Engages in the methods of inquiry used in the discipline;
·  Creates interdisciplinary learning / 




1.2.2 / ·  Knows and identifies child/adolescent
·  development;
·  Strengthens prior knowledge with new
·  ideas;
·  Encourages student responsibility;
·  4. Knows theories of learning. / 



1.2.4 / ·  Selects alternative teaching strategies, materials, and technology to achieve multiple instructional purposes and to meet student needs.
·  Engages students in active learning that promotes the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities / 

1.2.5 / ·  Selects and creates learning experiences that are appropriate for curriculum goals, relevant to learners, and based upon principles of effective instruction (e.g., encourages exploration and problem solving, building new skills from those previously acquired);
·  Creates lessons and activities that recognize individual needs of diverse learners and variations in leaning styles and performance;
·  Evaluates plans relative to long and short-term goals and adjusts them to meet student needs and to enhance learning. / 


1.2.7 / ·  Models effective verbal/nonverbal communication skills;
·  Demonstrates sensitivity to cultural, gender, intellectual, and physical ability differences in the classroom communication and in response to students’ communications;
·  Supports and expands learner expression in speaking, writing, listening and other media;
·  Uses a variety of media communication tools. / 



Weeks Four to Six: Unit Two:

Curriculum Content:

·  The Neonate

·  Physical development in infants and toddlers

·  Cognitive development in Infants and toddlers

·  Language and communication development in infants and toddlers

·  Social and emotional development in infants and toddlers

Instructional Goals:

1.  The student will discuss contrasts-sensitivity and temporal resolution in newborn vision, analyze neonates’ alertness and behavioral states, compare and contrast breastfeeding and bottle feeding, and define thermo genesis.

2.  The student will describe the appearance of a newborn, recognize the appearance of a jaundiced infant, describe the typical pattern of neonatal feeding and sleeping, and recognize individual differences in neonates.

3.  The student will identify neonatal reflexes, define binocular fixation and visual accommodation, explain swaddling, and evaluate various methods of soothing a crying infant.

4.  The student will create a supportive learning environment, hypothesize about effective means of establishing a healthy relationship with a newborn, analyze how habituation processes can be used to determine neonatal perceptions, and differentiate neonates’ temperaments.

5.  The student will be able to explain growth rates and eating patterns during infancy and toddler hood, analyze Frailberg’s studies with blind babies, compare and contrast development of motor skills in infants and toddlers, construct an inventory of childhood illnesses, and deduce why breast-fed babies accept new foods more easily.

6.  The student will demonstrate knowledge of brain growth and its implications for a properly enriched environment; demonstrate knowledge of a child’s development of manual manipulation, reaching and grasping; proceduralize how bladder control is attained, and discuss shaken baby syndrome, etc.

7.  The student will discuss WIC programs and the value to women and children, deduce proper oral hygiene, and relate the process of ossification to the study of gender differences in malnutrition.

8.  The student will discuss measures to be taken to establish a safe environment for infants and toddlers, describe the development of infant scanning behavior, relate Piaget’s development of sensorimotor development, and research play in various cultures.

9.  The student will explain the later development of reading facial expression compared to facial expression discrimination, assess infant depth perception, explain object permanence, and illustrate the impossible-possible events in methodology.

10.  The student will be able to define cognition, habituation processes, shape constancy, and socio-dramatic play, devise activities that promote categorizing skills, and demonstrate an understanding of visual perception studies in relationship to social communication changes during infancy.

11.  The student will express how habituation-dishabituation processes are used to assess infant concept attainment abilities.

12.  The student will formulate ideas for enriching a child’s environment during each of the senosrimotor stages.

13.  The student will describe the infant’s perception of segmental features of speech, demonstrate understanding of language development from the pre-linguistic states to the rudimentary sentences stage, restate the nativist theory and learning theory of child directed speech (CDS) and other social aspects of language, and interpret characteristics of parentese and other social aspects of language.

14.  The student will differentiate between “production” and “understanding” in language development, examine deictic and representational gestural communication, discuss how newborns are screened for hearing loss, employ the necessary skills to engage babies in vocal games illustrate holophrases and telegraphic speech, and summarize what a language acquisition device (LAD) is.

15.  The student will indicate how learning theory accounts for the rapid expansion of vocabulary development during the single word stage, discuss the implications of the use of parentese during a child’s first year of life and the impact of receptive language skills during the second year of life, examine how babbling is influenced by the environment, and explore how toddlers use strategies to open conversations.

16.  The student will describe the attachment between infants and adults, relate the role of the attachments a child forms and his/her later development, evaluate how childcare might affect parent-child attachment, and assess how imprinting is related to attachment.

17.  The student will analyze infants’ and toddlers’ interactions with others; question the development of empathy; inventory the theories of separation anxiety; debate whether intervention might lessen attachment difficulties; define empathy, gender-typed behavior, and social referencing.

18.  The student will compare and contrast the four basic patterns of attachment, evaluate the relationship between the infant’s early social signals and adult responses, discuss problems correlated with anxious attachment histories, discuss how temperament can influence social interaction, and indicate how babies respond to each other.

Mid-Preparation Teacher Education Standards / Standards Addressed
Standard 1.2.1: The preservice teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry and structures of the discipline(s) within the context of a global society and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
Standard 1.2.2: The preservice teacher understands how students develop, and provides learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of students.
Standard 1.2.4: The preservice teacher recognizes the importance of long-range planning and curriculum development and develops, implements, and evaluates curriculum based upon student, district, and state performance standards.
Standard 1.2.5: Standard 1.2.5 The preservice teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking problem solving, and performance skills.
Standard 1.2.7: The preservice teacher models effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. / 





Performance Objectives:

  1. The student will create a matrix evaluating the four basic patterns of attachment.
  2. The student will create a Venn diagram differentiating between “production” and “understanding” in language development.
  3. The student will compile a list of measures used to facilitate an infant’s speech and communication.
  4. The student will design a hypothetical safe environment for infants and toddlers.
  5. The student will interview parents of infants to determine what characteristics are important to developing a healthy relationship with a newborn.
  6. The student will create a graph explaining growth rates and eating patterns for infants and toddlers.
  7. The student will collect research on brain development and incorporate the material into a research project.

Standard Number / Performance Indicators
The Preservice teacher / Indicators Addressed
1.2.1 / ·  Knows the discipline application to certification area(s);
·  Presents the subject matter in multiple ways:
·  Uses students’ prior knowledge;
·  Engages in the methods of inquiry used in the discipline;
·  Creates interdisciplinary learning / 




1.2.2 / ·  Knows and identifies child/adolescent development;
·  Strengthens prior knowledge with new ideas;
·  Encourages student responsibility.
·  Knows theories of learning. / 



1.2.4 / ·  Selects alternative teaching strategies, materials, and technology to achieve multiple instructional purposes and to meet student needs.
·  Engages students in active learning that promotes the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities / 

1.2.5 / ·  Selects and creates learning experiences that are appropriate for curriculum goals, relevant to learners, and based upon principles of effective instruction (e.g., encourages exploration and problem solving, building new skills from those previously acquired);
·  Creates lessons and activities that recognize individual needs of diverse learners and variations in leaning styles and performance;
·  Evaluates plans relative to long and short-term goals and adjusts them to meet student needs and to enhance learning. / 


1.2.7 / ·  Models effective verbal/nonverbal communication skills;
·  Demonstrates sensitivity to cultural, gender, intellectual, and physical ability differences in the classroom communication and in response to students’ communications;
·  Supports and expands learner expression in speaking, writing, listening and other media;
·  Uses a variety of media communication tools. / 



Weeks Seven through Nine: Unit Three: Preschool Children

Curriculum Content:

·  Physical development in preschool children

·  Cognitive development in preschool children

·  Language and communication development in preschool children’

·  Social and emotional development in preschool children.

Instructional Goals:

  1. The student can describe the physical growth during the preschool years, changes in appearance of preschoolers, locomotor skills, communication and health problems, frequency and impact of child abuse, and indicators of child abuse.
  2. The student can explain the development of throwing and catching, eating and sleeping patterns, increases of accounts of reported child abuse, and long-term consequences of child abuse.
  3. The student will be able to define and describe the center of gravity, marked time climbing, otitis media, and meningitis.
  4. The student will assess playground safety, preschool motor development, attending child-care centers, and prevention of abuse and neglect.
  5. The student can describe preoperational thinking and concrete operations of thinking, hierarchical classifications, animalistic thinking, and differences in pretend play in various cultures.
  6. The student will debate Piaget’s theories.
  7. The student will define conversation, domain specific theories of child reasoning, counting errors, and egocentric point-of-view in speech.
  8. The student will indicate how identity, compensation, and reversibility lead to conversation.
  9. The student will discuss new findings on number concepts.
  10. The student will assess means of helping preschoolers discuss negative experiences.
  11. The student will evaluate how to use pretend play to promote decentration and decontextualization.
  12. The student will appraise how books can be used with preschool children to assist in their development of perspective beliefs.
  13. The student will describe children’s early oral language, sentence construction, adult interactions with children’s grammar, and methods of storybook reading.
  14. The student will explain how children acquire morphological rules, learn conventions of print, express comprehension, identify word order, and increase vocabulary.
  15. The student will define syntactic bootstrapping, phonemic awareness, over-regularization, orthography, syllabic hypothesis, phoneme recognition, morpheme identification, and finger-point reading.
  16. The student will express the importance of identifying social context and parental behavior for learning language, deciding appropriateness of books, determining the importance of adult interaction in language learning, discussing ways to foster writing.
  17. The student can define the four stages of attachment, the problems of relying on extinction and punishment to cope with inappropriate behavior, the development of pro-social behavior, and list examples of the negative consequences of punishment.
  18. The student can demonstrate understanding of social referencing, Baumrind’s patterns of parental discipline, how social learning theory accounts for the social and emotional development that occurs during the preschool years, and the advantages of using induction vs. power-assertiveness to enlist preschoolers’ cooperation.
  19. The student can define script knowledge, power assertive and inductive discipline, reinforcement, extinction, punishment, internalization, and identification.
  20. The student can apply his/her knowledge of positive attribution, verbal instruction, autobiographical narrative acceptance to foster positive social development.
  21. The student will list examples of the uses of observational learning and its correlation to aggressive behavior.
  22. The student will suggest means to help preschoolers develop positive social and emotional behavior.

Mid-Preparation Teacher Education Standards / Standards Addressed
Standard 1.2.1: The preservice teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry and structures of the discipline(s) within the context of a global society and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
Standard 1.2.2: The preservice teacher understands how students develop, and provides learning opportunities that support the intellectual, social, and personal development of students.
Standard 1.2.4: The preservice teacher recognizes the importance of long-range planning and curriculum development and develops, implements, and evaluates curriculum based upon student, district, and state performance standards.
Standard 1.2.5: Standard 1.2.5 The preservice teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking problem solving, and performance skills.
Standard 1.2.7: The preservice teacher models effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. / 





Performance Objectives: