For the latest course announcements see the "Announcements" on the Illinois Compass site for EdPsy 313 (see below for information about Illinois Compass).
I believe that education is a process of involving the growth of knowledge and skills that is facilitated by the active participation of students in an environment that is free, critical and supportive. I will therefore attempt to provide such an environment for this course.
By free, I mean that students should have an opportunity to reveal the current state of their knowledge and skills. By critical I mean that students should encounter criticism of their knowledge and skills in order to improve them. And by supportive I mean that students should not be discouraged from taking risks and making errors as they improve their knowledge and skills.
To provide such an environment, time will be spent in class and small-group discussion sessions, both in class and electronically via the Internet. This will allow students to share, critique, and improve their knowledge of the course's topics. My principal role will that of coordinator of class activities, critic, and "devil's advocate," although I will also provide demonstrations and lectures to complement the readings and discussions. For this organization to be effective, it will be crucial that students complete weekly readings, quizzes and assignments before the class when they will be discussed. Further information on the format and organization of the course will be discussed during the first class meetings.
The primary objective of this course is for students to improve their knowledge of what language is, how children acquire it, how and why it is used by and with children, and how the development of language skills is related to home and school factors.
The study of language is of particular interest and importance to educators for several reasons:
We will also contrast typical and atypical language development in young children including specific language disabilities, the relationship between communication delays and other areas of early learning and development, and alternative communication systems for young children with disabilities.
It is hoped that the knowledge gained in this course will be of use to those interested in education and child development as well as to those interested in developing a better understanding of the ability which best distinguishes our species from all others.
The course readings will be taking from the following three books available at the Illini Union Bookstore on Wright and other academic bookstores:
In addition, the first reading of the course, a chapter by Henry Perkinson, is available on the Web by clicking here.
The purpose of class activities is to facilitate the development and application of course-related knowledge and to provide a basis for the evaluation of the progress of each student.
The different activities are:
Each reading should be completed before the class meeting for which it is assigned. Notes should be taken as needed. Students should be prepared to summarize the main points of each reading and to share their comments, questions, insights, criticisms and application ideas with the class.
A short-answer quiz based on the major points of each weekly reading must be completed two hours before the beginning of the next class. Quizzes will be administered via Compass (see below). They can be taken from any computer connected to the Internet with Netscape or Internet Explorer 3 or higher. A quiz may be taken up to two times during the week preceding the next class (see more information below under "Grades").
Students registered for 3 hours or .5 unit will have a short weekly writing assignments alternating between"Summary, Critique & Impact (SCI) Statements" (for odd students on odd assignments and even students on even assignments) and "Replies" (for even students on odd assignments and odd students on even assignments). SCI Statements will be "composed" to the appropriate Compass Discussion Topic on Compass (see below) along with a title placed in the subject field. Students registered for 1 unit will be considered both odd and even and will complete both a SCI Statement and Reply each week.
Summary, Critique & Impact (SCI) Statements are due by 11 pm on three days before class. They will consist of three parts, each of which should be identified by a heading:
Replies will be a paragraph or more with reactions to SCI Statements. Replies should be submitted to the appropriate Discussion Topic on Compass by 11 pm the day before class using the "Reply" function to the chosen post. Students should choose an "unreplied" post unless all posts have already been replied to.
Students should take into consideration possible technical problems in submitting assignments and reactions to Compass and should therefore attempt to submit their assignments well before the above deadlines. If you are using a modem to access the university computer network, be advised that you are much less likely to receive a busy signal in the morning and early afternoon.
Compass Discussion Topic activity in addition to these required activities are encouraged.
Students will provide feedback on the course and class activities by completing a brief Student Feedback Questionnaire each week on Compass before the next class. This will be particularly useful for evaluating the various small-group cooperative learning activities that we will use throughout the semester.
Students are expected to attend class and participate in class and small-group discussions and activities. Students should be prepared to summarize the main points of each reading and to share their comments, questions, insights, and critiques with the class.
6. Team Web Project
Students, working in small teams, will produce a Web page with links to resources on the Web relevant to a course topic along with a paragraph describing each resource (including mention of the developer or sponsor of the Website) and how they relate to the theories of child development, language acquisition, and education considered in the course. The Team Web Project is due one day before our 13th class meeting (for Spring 2004 that is April 19, 2003). Brief presentations to the class by team members with one student giving an overview of the Website and each team member showing his or her favorite Website will take place during the following class meetings.
The project should contain at least five web resources for each person on the team, with no more than two of them taken from projects of previous semesters (see Student Project under Resources). It should also contain (a) an Introductory Paragraph describing the topic and organization of the Web page and (b) an Impact Statement from each team member describing what that person learned about the topic from working on the project. Finally, each team member should clearly indentify one Website as his or her favorite.
Here you can find a very basic template for how your project website should look. The basic steps involved in preparing and publishing your website on the Web are outlined here.
Unless you are already familiar with web design software such as FrontPage, I recommend that you use MS-Word or Netscape Composer (click on the icon of the pen in the lower right corner of any Netscape browser window).
Unless you already use another Web hosting server, you should use UIUC Netfiles as your Web server. Information about using Netfiles can be found here.
I recommend that you make a new directory (folder) within the www directory with the name "edpsy313" and that you save your project page in this "edpsy313" folder using the name "index.html." The address to your Web project will then be netfiles.uiuc.edu/your_netid/www/edpsy313, replacing "your_netid" with your own netid.
In order to maximize the portability of your project, it should consist of a single file. This will make it possible for me to put your project on the course Web server where students (and you) will have access to it even after you leave the University and no longer have an account here. This means you should not use in-line graphics, frames, or other "fancy" features that require using more than one file for your project unless you also provide a "single-file" version for the course archives.
Here are some directories search engines to find information on the Web:
Mac users should try or Sherlock (under the Apple menu).
The following activities will be involved in the project. Teams may find it efficient to assign primary responsibility for one or more activities to different members of the team:
Team Web projects will be presented in class. One team member will (a) give an overview of the project, (b) present his or her favorite Website, and (c) state the impact that the project has had on him or her. Other members of the team will also do (b) and (c). Each project presentation should not take longer than approximately 10 minutes.
The take-home final assignment is available by clicking above. It must be submitted to the Final Assignment topic in Compass Discussions no later than the day before the final class meeting (Monday, May 3, 2004 for the Spring 2004 semester) although earlier submissions are encouraged and appreciated. A hard copy should be submitted at the final class meeting or sent to me via U.S. mail (Educational Psychology, 1310 S. 6th St., Champaign, IL 61820), campus mail (210 Education, MC-708) or put in my mailbox in 226 Education to arrive no later than the next day.
A final examination will be given during the final exam week. This exam will comprise multiple-choice and short-answer questions sampled from the same items used for the weekly quizzes.
In addition to the above activities, students taking the course for one unit will complete a research project. An outline of the project is due on the fifth meeting of the class. The final project is due at the last regular class meeting. Students doing a research project should meet the instructor before the fourth week of class.
The Course Calendar tells what we are doing and when, and also has links to class notes.
The instructor's office hours can be found here.
A non-competitive, criterion-referenced ("no curve") method of grading will be used. This means that it will be possible for every student to get an A (but also possible for every student to get a C or worse!).
Grades will be based on the quality, completeness and punctuality of students' quizzes and written work, including the Team Web Project.
Quizzes: Weekly quizzes will be awarded from zero to 5 points. Students will be allowed to take each quiz twice with the grade being the mean of the two scores. There will be a time limit equal to one minute for each item on the quiz (e.g., 10 minutes for a 10-item quiz). Students exceeding the time limit by a nontrivial amount may have one point deducted. Unexcused late or uncompleted quizzes will receive zero points. Students having special needs that interfere with taking a timed test should make special arrangements for the quizzes with the instructor.
Written Assignments: Weekly written assignments will be awarded from 0 to 2 points (using half point increments) with 2 points for satisfactory, punctual work and 0 for unexcused late or missing assignments. All written assignment will be submitted via Compass.
Team Project: The Team Web Project will be evaluated using a letter grade.
Final Assignment: The final assignment will be evaluated using a letter grade.
Final Examination: The final examination will be scored on the percent of items correct.
For students taking the course for 3 hours or 1/2 graduate unit, the final grade will be determined as follows:
The total weighted percentage will be used to assign final grades as follows:
For students taking the course for 1 graduate unit, the final grade will calculated as a weighted sum of (a) 65% of the grade obtained from the above procedure and (b) 35% of the grade obtained on the term paper or project.
In addition to writing assignments and administering weekly quizzes and questionnaires, Illinois Compass will be used to keep a record of students' work and grades. Compass includes the latest version of WebCT and we are among the first group of courses using this new software this semester at UIUC.
Students should use their Net-ID and password to logon to Compass. Compass can be found at http://compass.uiuc.edu..
If you suspect that the Compass server is down (you get no response when you try to connect to it), you should call the Center for Educational Technologies (CET) at 333-1078 during business hours or email Rick Langlois at rlangloi@uiuc.edu. Students are often the first to know if something is wrong, and the server can usually be up and running in a few minutes if the support staff is notified of the problem.
Click above for some course-related resources on the Web. Let me know if you find some more. If you find others, please post them in the "Resources" Discussion Topic in Compass..
Class Activities
(Introductions)
Feedback Questionnaire
WarmUp Quiz Results
Compass Discussion Topics
Lecture/Demo
Small-group activities
(Computer Lab activities)