[ Summary ] [ Syllabus] [Assignments ] [Bibliography & Resources][Question Submission]

[Observe a Child] [Analyze a Children's Artifact] [Critical Essay] [Produce a Children's Artifact]

Assignment 1: Observe a Child Due: Thursday, January 14th.

Description: Find some real children, watch them engaging in some activity, and write up an transcript of your observations. You can either structure your observations around a topic that interests you (such as, "differences in play patterns between same-sex and mixed sex peers", or "how children actually use action figures") or an interesting children's activity (such as "juice time", "storytime", "bedtime"). Note that the goal of the assignment is (a) to get you to distinguish between observation and interpretation; (b) to give you some data on real children. Thus, your goal is to observe everything that goes on and write it down without interpretation (a tape recorder or videocamera will help a lot!). Then, on a separate page, you can put down how you interpret the children's behavior.

We will try to organize a group visit to some spot with lots of children for those students who don't have easy access. Stay tuned for details.

Read : Dorothy H. Cohen, Virginia Stern, Nancy Balaban, "Observing and Recording the Behavior of Young Children."

What to turn in: The transcript of your observations (what the kids said & did) and also 1-2 pages on how you interpret their behavior based on one or more of the class readings. Please turn in your assignment both as an email attachment, and printed out: email a Word or rich-text document to zeina <at> u <dot> northwestern <dot> edu and justine <at> northwestern <dot> edu by the beginning of class and bring a printout to class.

Please name the file attachment as follows: <Last names of author(s)>_ObserveChild_CC_W10 for example: Piaget_Tobin_ObserveChild_CC_W10.doc

Grading: 15% of your final grade. Your grade is based on how well you distinguish observations from interpretations, the amount of detail in your observations, and how well you apply theories from class and assigned readings to your interpretation.

Collaborative work is encouraged, but not required, for this assignment. If you work in a group, you have the choice of turning in separate reports of your work by each group member, or one single report for the group. However, if you turn in one single written report for the entire group, you must also submit a written description of what each student contributed to the assignment. In order to make sure that your collaboration falls within the Northwestern guidelines of academic integrity, you must read : http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/ and http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html.

[ Summary ] [ Syllabus] [Assignments ] [Bibliography & Resources][Question Submission] [Observe a Child] [Analyze a Children's Artifact] [Critical Essay] [Produce a Children's Artifact]

	Assignment 1: Observe a Child	Due: Thursday, January 14th.
	Description: Find some real children, watch them engaging in some activity, and write up an transcript of your observations. You can either structure your observations around a topic that interests you (such as, "differences in play patterns between same-sex and mixed sex peers", or "how children actually use action figures") or an interesting children's activity (such as "juice time", "storytime", "bedtime"). Note that the goal of the assignment is (a) to get you to distinguish between observation and interpretation; (b) to give you some data on real children. Thus, your goal is to observe everything that goes on and write it down without interpretation (a tape recorder or videocamera will help a lot!). Then, on a separate page, you can put down how you interpret the children's behavior. We will try to organize a group visit to some spot with lots of children for those students who don't have easy access. Stay tuned for details. Read : Dorothy H. Cohen, Virginia Stern, Nancy Balaban, "Observing and Recording the Behavior of Young Children." What to turn in: The transcript of your observations (what the kids said & did) and also 1-2 pages on how you interpret their behavior based on one or more of the class readings. Please turn in your assignment both as an email attachment, and printed out: email a Word or rich-text document to zeina <at> u <dot> northwestern <dot> edu and justine <at> northwestern <dot> edu by the beginning of class and bring a printout to class. Please name the file attachment as follows: <Last names of author(s)>_ObserveChild_CC_W10 for example: Piaget_Tobin_ObserveChild_CC_W10.doc Grading: 15% of your final grade. Your grade is based on how well you distinguish observations from interpretations, the amount of detail in your observations, and how well you apply theories from class and assigned readings to your interpretation. Collaborative work is encouraged, but not required, for this assignment. If you work in a group, you have the choice of turning in separate reports of your work by each group member, or one single report for the group. However, if you turn in one single written report for the entire group, you must also submit a written description of what each student contributed to the assignment. In order to make sure that your collaboration falls within the Northwestern guidelines of academic integrity, you must read : http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/ and http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html.