Guidance of the Young Child - ECME 113 (3 credit hours)

Instructor

Ann Sullivan
e-mail annece@gallup.unm.edu
Calvin Hall 124 (W) 863-7745 (H) 863-7944

Office Hours

Tuesday 12:30 - 3:30
Wednesday 1:00 - 4:00
Thursday 1:00 - 5:00

Class Meetings

This class meets from 9:00 to 11:40 every Friday from Jan. 24 to May 16, 2003 except for March 28, 2003 which is during spring break.

Required Text

Guiding Young Children in a Diverse Society , by Ann Gordon and Kathryn Williams Browne, Allyn and Bacon, 1996.

Open Access Policy

UNM-Gallup is committed to providing an open and accessible educational environment to all individuals regardless of special needs. Any student who requires special accommodations to successfully participate in and complete this course should contact Jeanne Knight, 863-7520, in Student Services.

Student Conduct Policy

Students are expected to act respectfully and responsibly in their interactions with me and their colleagues. It is important that each one of us respects the exchange of ideas that will occur as part of class discussions and activities, and that we all practice professional behavior regarding information shared in this setting. Breaches of confidentiality, cheating, plagirizing or other irresponsible act will be dealt with in accordance with the policies outlined in the Student Handbook.

Attendance Policy

Attendance and participation are a large part of the grade in this course. Classes will be structured to be active and interactive - attendance cannot be 'made up'. If you know in advance of a class for which you will be absent, it is important to inform the instructor. This does not imply that you are excused from class, or that you will not loose points for missing the class.

The Early Childhood Multicultural Education Program has a strict policy concerning attendance. Every absence will have an impact upon how much you learn in the course. Therefore absences are closely connected to your final grade. The way the policy will be implemented for this course is as follows:

            • the first missed class will result in a loss of 20 points from grade points;

            • the second missed class will result in a loss of 25 more points from grade points
                and could make the student ineligible to receive more than a B in the course;

            • a third absence will result in the student losing 30 more points and could make the student ineligible to earn more than a C in the course.

A student who is in the position of missing 3 classes needs to arrange to meet and discuss the situation with the instructor. Any further absences will provide cause for
the instructor to counsel the student to drop the course or take an incomplete, rather then fail the course. A pattern of late arrivals or leaving class early could considered as an absence and will result in the loss of at least some points for attendance.

Grading Policy

Grades will be based upon attendance, participation in class activities, assignments, two papers, vocabulary quizzes, a midterm and a final. I do not usually give plus or minus to the letter grades but reserve the right to do so to reflect the effort or lack of effort on the part of any particular student in completing the work of this course.

Course Requirements and Assignments

Letter Grades

Grading for Individual Activities:

Attendance

This is a 2 hour 40 minute class. Students are expected to arrive on time, stay for the entire class period and participate in the activities of the class.

Weekly Homework Assignments

Students are expected to have completed assignments (both reading and writing) prior to the class session. Homework will be turned in at the start of the class. Any assignments written during the class session will not be graded. Homework more than one week late will not be graded.
All materials that you wish to have included for a grade in this course must be turned in to the instructor by May 2, 2003.The standard homework assignment will be to answer these questions for a particular chapter or article (all work should be double spaced):

• What is the main idea (the most important idea) of this piece?
• What are 3-4 other important ideas?
• What are 5 words that are new to you or important enough that we all should learn their meanings?

When you are writing the homework assignments it is important that you put the ideas into your own words. Copying the text is plagiarism - you are stealing the author's words and passing them off as your own. Plagiarized material will not be counted for homework credit. If you use material from the text or an artias part of your writing you must use an appropriate citation style which indicates where you found that material.Assignments will be graded on the following basis:

Papers

There are two longer assignments required in this class. One is focused on researching materials from the Web and writing about a topic related to this course. The second assignment is focused on preparing a philosophy statement about how children should be guided based on what you learn from this course. I will be handing out specific guidelines for these assignments. One of them must be turned in by the midterm in order to continue in the course.

Vocabulary Quizzes

Each student will collect words from the reading assignments and class discussion as an ongoing list. Students will look up definitions for words on the list as an ongoing assignment and any words identified in class will be included on the quizzes.Quizzes may be announced or unannounced. All the points earned on quizzes will be combined with the grade on the final to reach 60 points. The quizzes will be at the start of the class session, will focus on the assigned reading from the prior week and will take no more than 10-20 minutes of class time. There will be no make-up of missed quizzes. Students need to be present in class, on time in order to take the quiz.  Students should have at least 20 points on the quizzes by midterm to continue with the course.

Midterm/Final

These two tests will be developed from materials covered in each half of the semester. The tests will consist of short responses to questions, multiple choice questions and short essays. Students need to score at least 30 points on the midterm to stay in the course.