Psychology 3442F-001
Mind, Brain and Education
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
1.0 CALENDAR DESCRIPTION
The course reviews data from recent cognitive neuroscience research on educationally-relevant functions. Discussions will focus on how such studies may be useful to education and how, in turn, insights from education may inform developmental cognitive neuroscience research. Additionally, students will collaborate with community partners on an educationally-relevant topic.
Prerequisites: Psychology 2820E or both Psychology 2800E and 2810, and one of Psychology 2040A/B, 2220A/B, 2221A/B, 2410A/B or Neuroscience 2000
Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enrol in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
3 lecture/seminar hours, 0.5 course
2.0 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Lien Peters
Office: Western Interdisciplinary Research Building, 5th floor
Office Hours: Will be communicated as soon as possible
Email: lpeter56@uwo.ca
Teaching Assistant: Will be communicated as soon as possible
Office:
Office Hours:
Email:
Time and Location of Classes: Thursdays 3:30-6:30pm, WIRB
Students who are in emotional/mental distress should refer to Mental Health@Western
http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth/ for a complete list of options about how to obtain help.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Student Accessibility Services (formerly known as Services for Students with Disabilities) at 519-661-2147.
3.0 TEXTBOOK
The readings, with a few exceptions, will be recently published, peer-reviewed journal articles. For this course to be productive, interesting and successful, it is imperative that you do all the readings. For your convenience, we will post the readings on the OWL website for this course. If you have difficulties accessing the materials or if you find that materials are missing from the website, please contact the instructor.
4.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES
The aim of this course is to critically review recent evidence from psychological and cognitive neuroscience studies on the development of mental functions that are important in the context of education. The review and discussion of evidence will focus on whether or not and by what mechanisms evidence from behavioral and brain-imaging studies of developmental processes can have an impact on education. In addition, the course will introduce students to the methods currently used to study the development of brain function and structure, thereby providing transferable skills in critical reading of peer-reviewed journal articles. Students will also develop graduate-level presentation and writing skills. Finally, students will collaborate with a community partner on an educationally-relevant topic throughout the semester, which will allow them to apply their newly gained knowledge on mind, brain and education in practice.4.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Describe concepts in Mind, Brain and Education (through active participation in class and writing the final paper)
- Compare and contrast evidence reported in scholarly research papers (through completing the in class quizzes)
- Evaluate evidence from research in Mind, Brain and Education (through active participation in class and writing the final paper)
- Locate and critically evaluate scholarly research in developmental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and genetics that pertain to education (through writing the final paper and by working towards a product of the collaboration with the community partner and presenting that)
- Relate findings from research in developmental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and genetics to education (through writing the final paper, and by working towards a product of the collaboration with the community partner and presenting that)
Collaborate with a community partner on educationally-relevant topics (by working towards a product of the collaboration with the community partner, presenting that, and completing the reflection and peer assessment assignments)
5.0 EVALUATION
- Class attendance and participation (10%)
- In class quizzes (15%)
- Product of collaboration with community partner and presentation (30%)
- Reflection and peer assessment (15%)
- Final paper (30%)
Class attendance and participation: This course depends on your attendance and active participation in the class discussions. It is therefore crucial that you make very effort to attend every class and come prepared to participate, having read the readings. Often the instructor will ask for definitions of terms from a previous class and thereby conduct a mini-review of the preceding class at the beginning of each class.
In class quizzes: At the beginning of 3 classes during the term you will be asked to complete a very short quiz. These quizzes will contain 5 brief questions that relate directly to the readings assigned for that day. The precise date of these quizzes will not be announced.
Product of collaboration with community partner and presentation: Throughout the semester, you will work, in small groups, on an educationally-relevant topic in collaboration with a community partner. These partners have all identified a certain topic that they want to work on. They will come and propose these projects in (one of) the first class(es). Based on your interests, you will be asked to rank the topics and to the best of our abilities, we will match you with the community partner that your interest align with best. You will work towards a final product, the form of which will depend on your specific project (e.g., literature review, development of material, design of evaluation metrics, etc.). At the end of the course, you will present the process of your collaboration as well as your final product in class. The final product of the project is due at 5pm via OWL on Thursday, December 5.
This project is the perfect opportunity for you to network with community partners, and to learn how research findings translate into practice and how practice can inform research questions.
Reflection and peer assessment: You will be asked to reflect on and evaluate your collaboration wit the community partner, both halfway through the course as well as at the end. In addition, you will be asked to evaluate the collaboration with the other students in your group and with the community partner.
Final paper: To give you the opportunity to review literature in depth and to provide a cohesive summary of conceptual and empirical advances in the study of Mind, Brain and Education, you are required to write a paper of at least 2500 words (1.5 spaced). You should choose the topic for your paper from the topics within the syllabus and generate a question. In your paper, you should not merely rely on the class readings. You should go beyond class readings, do your own independent literature searches, and review the literature critically.
You are strongly encouraged to discuss the topic of your final paper with the instructor or teaching assistant. You may also give the instructor a short plan or draft of your final paper for review at least 3 weeks before the deadline (Thursday November 14). The Final paper is due at 5pm via OWL on Thursday, December 5.
PLEASE NOTE: Because this is an essay course, as per Senate Regulations, you must pass the essay component to pass the course. That is, the average mark for your written assignments must be at least 50%.
This course is exempt from the Senate requirement that students receive assessment of their work accounting for at least 15% of their final grade at least three full days before the date of the deadline for withdrawal from a course without academic penalty.
Although the Psychology Department does not require instructors to adjust their course grades to conform to specific targets, the expectation is that course marks will be distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level and 2000-level courses
72% 2190-2990 level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
The Psychology Department follows Western's grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf):
A+ 90-100 One could scarcely expect better from a student at this level
A 80-89 Superior work that is clearly above average
B 70-79 Good work, meeting all requirements, and eminently satisfactory
C 60-69 Competent work, meeting requirements
D 50-59 Fair work, minimally acceptable
F below 50 Fail
6.0 ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION SCHEDULE
See above
7.0 CLASS SCHEDULE
- Thursday, September 5th
Introduction to the course and to the project component of the course
- Thursday, September 12th
Introduction to the community partners and projects
Methods & Models in Mind, Brain and Education
Sigman, Peña, Goldin, & Ribeiro, 2014
- Thursday, September 19th
Neuromyths & Education
Dekker et al., 2012
Pasquinelli, 2012
- Thursday, September 26th
Brain Plasticity
Power & Schlaggar, 2017
Ansari, 2012
- Thursday, October 3rd
Genetics & Education
Kovas & Plomin, 2007
Shakeshaft et al., 2013
- Thursday, October 10th
No class
- Thursday, October 17th
Reading & the Brain
Ozernov-Palchik et al., 2016
- Thursday, October 24th
Arithmetic & the Brain
Peters & De Smedt, 2018
- Thursday, October 31st
Education in Context
Mackey et al., 2015
- Thursday, November 7th
No class – Fall Reading Week
- Thursday, November 14th
Brain Training
Owen et al., 2010
Newspaper articles
- Thursday, November 21st
Learning Disorders & Special Education
Peters & Ansari, 2019
- Thursday, November 28th
Project Presentations
- Thursday, December 5th
8.0 STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC OFFENCES
Students are responsible for understanding the nature and avoiding the occurrence of plagiarism and other scholastic offenses. Plagiarism and cheating are considered very serious offenses because they undermine the integrity of research and education. Actions constituting a scholastic offense are described at the following link: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf
As of Sept. 1, 2009, the Department of Psychology will take the following steps to detect scholastic offenses. All multiple-choice tests and exams will be checked for similarities in the pattern of responses using reliable software, and records will be made of student seating locations in all tests and exams. All written assignments will be submitted to TurnItIn, a service designed to detect and deter plagiarism by comparing written material to over 5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in TurnItIn’s databases. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between Western and Turnitin.com http://www.turnitin.com
Possible penalties for a scholastic offense include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
9.0 POLICY ON ACCOMMODATION FOR MEDICAL ILLNESS
Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/PolicyPages.cfm?PolicyCategoryID=1&Command=showCategory&SelectedCalendar=Live&ArchiveID=#Page_12
The full policy for consideration for absences can be accessed at: https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/Academic_Consideration_for_absences.pdf
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
If you experience an extenuating circumstance (e.g., illness, injury) sufficiently significant to temporarily make you unable to meet academic requirements, you may request accommodation through the following routes:
- Submitting a Self-Reported Absence form (for circumstances that are expected to resolve within 48 hours);
- For medical absences, submitting a Student Medical Certificate (SMC) signed by a licensed medical or mental health practitioner in order to be eligible for Academic Consideration;
For non-medical absences, submitting appropriate documentation (e.g., obituary, police report, accident report, court order, etc.) to Academic Counselling in their Faculty of registration in order to be eligible for academic consideration. Students are encouraged to contact their Academic Counselling unit to clarify what documentation is appropriate.
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation. The self-reported absence form may NOT be used for absences longer than 48 hours; coursework/tests/exams/etc., worth more than 30% of the final grade; or exams scheduled in the December or April final-exam periods: http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
Students seeking academic consideration:
- are advised to consider carefully the implications of postponing tests or midterm exams or delaying handing in work;
- are encouraged to make appropriate decisions based on their specific circumstances, recognizing that minor ailments (upset stomach) or upsets (argument with a friend) are not normally an appropriate basis for a self-reported absence;
must communicate with their instructors no later than 24 hours after the end of the period covered by either the self-reported absence or SMC, or immediately upon their return following a documented absence
10.0 OTHER INFORMATION
Office of the Registrar web site: http://registrar.uwo.ca
Student Development Services web site: http://www.sdc.uwo.ca
Please see the Psychology Undergraduate web site for information on the following:
http://psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/student_responsibilities/index.html
- Policy on Cheating and Academic Misconduct
- Procedures for Appealing Academic Evaluations
- Policy on Attendance
- Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extensions of Deadlines
- Policy for Assignments
- Short Absences
- Extended Absences
- Documentation
- Academic Concerns
- 2019-2020 Calendar References
No electronic devices, including cell phones and smart watches, will be allowed during exams.
Copyright Statement: Lectures and course materials, including power point presentations, outlines, and similar materials, are protected by copyright. You may take notes and make copies of course materials for your own educational use. You may not record lectures, reproduce (or allow others to reproduce), post or distribute lecture notes, wiki material, and other course materials publicly and/or for commercial purposes without the instructor’s written consent.
