PSYC 2700

The material for this class is very interesting, so I would recommend taking this course if you're interested in learning about children. However, there are negative aspects of this class too. First, there is a no technology rule, which is totally okay and I agree with, but she is very adamant about making sure to catch people that are using technology. There was many times in class where she would call people out from the front of the class, which was more distracting than actually seeing someone use technology. Also, Professor Lilliard has worked in the field of Montessori Education and feels a need to convert the class to feeling the same way she does which gets annoying.

Lillard has changed the class from how she used to teach it. This semester instead of exams, she had assigned 14 500 word essays (one each week) worth 70% of your grade and iClickers given in class worth 30%. Even though you write all of these essays (you have to turn in 12 of the 14), only 4 are actually graded and the TAs pick them at random so you have to make sure you write good essays each time. I think they were graded pretty fairly, if you engage with the material well they typically give you As. The iClickers she puts at the beginning of the lecture on the readings are kind of specific sometimes but she gives you 2 points for answering and 1 for getting the answer right (making each question worth 3 points). I was excited for this class and ended up being disappointed by how dry her lectures can be sometimes, but overall its not a hard class if you attend lectures and put some effort into the essays.

This course was very interesting to me. We got to learn about very cool topics and that alone was engaging to me. We also got to have babies come to our class, and were going to have a day where lots of babies came at once until we moved to remote learning. (which I was sad about). Overall, there are iclickers so you have to at least skim readings for the first few iclickers each week, and there are also some throughout the lectures. She is very understanding with them though and you get 2 points for just answering them and then an extra point for getting it right. There are not exams but there are these 500 word responses due each week. These responses are engaging and allow for you to put how you feel about the different topics covered in the previous week and you can question things or really just summarize what your learned and why that interested you. The only possible downfall is that you have to do at least 12/14 but only a random 3 or 4/12 will be graded (1 graded out of every 3 or 4 you turn in). That just means that all of them have to be done well and you won't get feedback on them all. She is pretty serous about no phones or technology in class, and you also can not sit in the back 3 rows in the huge lecture hall. Overall though I recommend this course.

Highly do NOT recommend taking this class with Professor Lillard if at all possible. When I took this in Fall 2018, the syllabus was set up to be: 50% final exam, 35% midterm, and 15% iClicker. Attendance at every class was necessary not only in order to get iClicker points, but also because there was a no technology rule and she did not post any of the lecture material online. Ended up with a surprisingly poor grade in this class despite taking notes in each class and studying for the exams. This class is definitely not worth the effort.

I took this during COVID-19 and it really grew on me. Instead of exams we had to write 10/12 essays (12/14 before the virus) for 70% of the grade. The other 30% were originally iClickers, after the virus it was half clickers, half collab quizzes. I don't see how anyone could get less than a B in this class. The essays were due every week but they were under 500 words and they were just about engaging with the material, nothing to stress over. It was annoying that they took forever to grade essays but I liked this format better than taking exams.

I liked this class. If you find children’s minds interesting, I would definitely recommend it. The workload was not bad, especially since Professor Lillard decided to use essay-based evaluations instead of tests. Basically, you just had to write a 500-word essay every week about one concept of your choosing from the previous week’s textbook reading or lecture. No tests. There were iClickers, though, and they were 30% of your grade, so you did have to attend. Then, after the class went online, we had 10-question multiple-choice quizzes on Collab every week in place of the clicker questions. Kept the essays. The difficulty level stayed about the same.

As for the instructor: Professor Lillard is a sweetie. She talks in falsetto, which is irritating, but you get used to it, and she clearly means well. My only real complaint about her is that she is very strict about her no-technology-during-lecture rule. She and her TAs would literally interrupt class to tell people to put away their phones, which seemed kind of counterproductive given that the main problem with phones is that they interrupt class. Also, while I am a big fan of Montessori education, sometimes I thought she kind of overdid it with the Montessori. And her frequent complaints about the noise generated by the construction projects outside were more distracting than the actual noises. BUT despite all that, she is a good person. I really liked that she would start class with a minute of “silence” (read: relaxation or, if you wanted, meditation) and that she gave us a five-minute break halfway through the lecture.

Bonus: The best part of the course was when she brought babies in to class!

Professor Lillard is condescending to students and is not helpful in any issues you bring to her attention. She is very dismissive and not understanding. While certain topics in this class were highly interesting, I think you'd have a better experience with a different professor. You can tell that no one likes to sit through this class and that the readings become extremely taxing.

I signed up for this course without looking at Prof. Lillard's reviews first, and immediately tried as hard as possible to replace this class with a different PSYC, but was unsuccessful. I came into the class ready to hate it, but I did not at all understand why the class and professor had so many complaints about the following topics:

Condescending tone:
[SHORTENED] No hint of a condescending tone. Very nice professor.
I did not catch a condescending tone whatsoever. If someone asked a question that Prof. had already answered, I could sense a bit of dismissal and rushing in her voice, but she seemed to be a very sweet lady who liked the participation and involvement overall. She is very soft-spoken and clearly cares a lot about the subject. She did not go too fast or slow during lectures, and explained everything in a way that was easy to understand.

Grading:
[SHORTENED] New specifications grading system. No final exam. Most of grade comes from weekly short essays.
They changed the grading system to specifications this year, so all you have to do to get an A- is write all 14 of the weekly essays (pass/fail; only 400+ words; due an hour before lecture on the last lecture of the week usually; I started most of mine at 9:15am and finished before the due date at 10am, and passed all of them; you're just writing about why a topic of your choice discussed in the chapter was interesting, if you agree/disagree with it, any connections you can make to your real life, etc. and have to bring in a peer-reviewed article for full credit), post 5 of your essays to the discussion board, make 15 comments on essays posted on the discussion board, read 95% of the textbook (self-reported at the end of the semester), attend 23 classes after the add/drop date (tracked with iClickers), and answer 85% of the iClicker questions correctly (as stated in the syllabus, but further discussion in class leads me to believe that they grade iClickers on participation rather than accuracy). The class is a super easy A. I took it as a first-semester freshman. You don't even need to do actual research or read the whole textbook to complete and pass the essays: I skimmed until I found something semi-interesting, wrote about why I found it interesting and if I could connect to some aspect of the topic, and quickly found a peer-reviewed article to mention in a few sentences. Everyone is given 4 "tokens" to use if you need an extension on an essay or missed a class and still want iClicker credit.

No-technology policy:
[SHORTENED] Allowed computers w/ accommodations. Allowed tablets/iPads. Will take your phone if she sees it during lecture.
Prof. Lillard does have a no-technology policy, but she relaxed it with my class and allowed us to use our iPads/tablets. If you want to use your laptop for note-taking, you need to have a record of your accommodations with the SDAC (Student Disability Access Center) and sit in the front row. I only ever saw her take 2 phones, but you have to write a 5+ page paper w/ "8 peer-reviewed academic studies of the effects of technology on student learning" (from the syllabus). She said it was 8 pages in the lecture, so she either misspoke or extended its length and didn't update the syllabus. If you don't write the essay and turn it in within 1 week of the incident, you will have to withdraw from the course. I brought an iPad, so I could still do whatever on it without being reprimanded for technology usage. The lecture wasn't so painfully boring where I felt like I needed my phone out.

Overall, the class was pretty enjoyable. We did zoom calls with babies and their mothers pretty often which was a fun way to waste time. Attendance is annoying because you're tracked with iClickers, and specs grading makes it so that you can fail the class just for missing too many lectures. Giving your iClicker to a classmate so you can receive credit is not allowed, but the only way to skip without messing up your grades in the end. Missing 4 of the essays will drop your grade to a D+ at the highest, so make sure to turn those in. I liked how we often had 5-minute breaks in the middle of the lecture to stretch, use our phones, leave, etc., and "mindful moments" for 2 minutes at the start of class to do guided deep breathing.

This course was okay. I am really interested in this subject, but if I had not been I don't think I would have liked the course at all. Prof Lillard is really smart. Research is definitely her thing though. She does a unique system of grading called "specifications" grading (another reviewer explained this well if you can find it). Sometimes this was nice, but a lot of times it was stressful, especially because she would make weird changes to the syllabus and it is nearly impossible to gauge what your grade will be. Imo I'd rather just have weekly quizzes or something instead of iclickers. Also, she's strict about her no tech policy, and actually snatched students' phones. I thought that was unprofessional. Other than the stress about specification grading and the phone snatching, I learned a lot in this course. We even zoomed mothers and babies sometimes which was cute.

While the material is interesting Professor Lillard has extremely mundane lectures that do not elaborate on required readings. There are 15 essays required(500 words) they are quite easy and graded as pass/fail. Professor Lillard does use a grading structure that is hard to understand so read carefully. Additionally Professor Lillard is quite cold and not understanding to many students and it is hard to create any connection with her. Overall the class is not awful but the Professor does make it more boring and difficult than necessary.