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Graduation and Retention Network

2024-2025 Winter Session

PSYC 420

Survey of Developmental Psychology

This 3-hour online course that’s offered in a non-traditional 3-week format.  Here’s a little bit of information about this course that may help you gain more insights about what you will be learning in this class.  

In this class we will learn about how humans grow and develop over the lifespan, beginning with conception and ending at death.  We will focus on three domains of how humans grow at each and every age and phase of life:  physically, cognitively, and socio-emotionally.  Your text begins at conception and matriculates through ages of life in a chronological fashion, starting with birth and infancy, then toddlerhood, then early childhood, on to late childhood, then adolescence, early adulthood, and so on, throughout life to death.  At each age grouping, you will learn about the physical, cognitive and socio emotional growth and developmental changes that occur at that age.  At the very beginning of the text, you will be introduced to several highly relevant developmental theorists like Piaget, Erikson, Vygotsky, Skinner, Pavlov, and so many others.  You will see these theorists again in other psychology or education related courses and on various professional exams, but these foundational and fundamental scientists are imperative to your working knowledge not only in the field psychology, but in professions who work and interact with human beings.

This course is an online, asynchronous course, full of rigor and daily engagement.  You will be utilizing differing AI related activities which integrate aspects of developmental psychology to enhance your engagement, and learning.  You can complete these learning activities at any time during the day they are due.  This class lasts 3 weeks, which will pass very quickly, and is divided into 20 modules.   

Most of all, this course is designed to develop your lifelong knowledge and insights of how humans change and evolve over their lifespan.  It is my hope that you enjoy the various assignments and uses of technology in this course.

Learning Outcomes

The instructor will use readings, PPTs, simulation and gamification activities, case studies, videos, and analysis of virtual parenting to facilitate students’ critical thinking and successful mastery of the following learning objectives:

  1. Compare and contrast theoretical perspectives used to frame developmental findings. 
  2. Explore the importance of the parent-child relationship over time. 
  3. Identify the basic process of brain and cognitive development over the lifespan and how developmental neuroscience contributes to our understanding of human development.
  4. Describe the hallmark features of physical, cognitive, and social/emotional development over the lifespan, and appreciate the inter-relationship among these domains.
  5. Discuss environmental influences on human development including socioeconomic status, abuse, education, niche-picking, peers, and parenting.
  6. Differentiate, reflect upon, articulate, and integrate ways in which lived experiences associated with culture, ethnicity, race, nationality, age, gender, and socioeconomic status influences expectations and development over time.
  7. Describe how the mind ages and how intelligence is expressed during adulthood. 

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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