PSYC 232: Child Development
Course: PSYC 232: Child Development (Offered Spring 2013)
Faculty: Jennifer E. Gibson, Ph.D.
Partner: Evanston Academy
Each weekday afternoon, voices resound as the doors to Evanston Academy are flung open by students excited to head home for the day. Inside, however, there is a quiet kind of focus as student mentors from Dr. Jen Gibson’s PSYC 232 course sit down with their mentees to learn from one another.
The course Gibson offers is on child development and her goal is to help provide her students with an in depth look at influential theories in child psychology, then learn how to apply those concepts to the real world. Because of Xavier’s existing partnership with Evanston Academy, Gibson was able to arrange for her students to work with mentees that are the exact age group described in the theories they learn about in the classroom.
“Students learn through a combination of in-class and out-of-class experiences,” Gibson said, “including an engaged learning experience that entails hands-on work with a child outside of class time and reflection papers that allow students to apply info from class to the child whom they are working with.”
As a part of the course, the Xavier student mentors are required to meet with their mentees from the school at least once a week. These meetings are required as part of the class, but do not take away from time in the actual classroom. Rather, they serve as a supplement to the information presented in the classroom, and these meetings are an application of the knowledge — like a much more dynamic form of homework, but packed with much more meaning.
“I wanted to promote deeper engagement with the class material and the ability to apply what they had learned to the real world,” Gibson said.
Students in her class work to apply the theories they learn in the academic setting to the real world, not only while at the school, but also in reflections that they write about the experience.
“So many of the topics were very applicable to the child partners so it was very helpful to do this,” one student said in a reflection. “Also, I felt like I really was making an impact on the life of my child partner.”
Gibson hopes that this additional aspect to learning will help students be more fulfilled in whatever kind of work they wind up doing after graduating, whether it is in the workforce or simply at home.
“We all encounter children in our personal and/or professional lives, but most of us don’t know what research says about the best way to promote their positive development,” Gibson said. “…By being able to apply what they have learned to the real world during the semester, I hope my students will be able to retain and use the information in their lives beyond Xavier. I want to make them more understanding and more effective parents, teachers, therapists, or whatever they choose to do and be in the world.”