Syllabus for Adulthood and Aging: Undergraduate Course
Raymond J. Shaw, Ph.D. E-mail: RShaw@merrimack.edu
Text: Cavanaugh, J.C. (1993). Adult Development and Aging (2nd Edition).
If you have any questions or comments regarding this syllabus, please contact Raymond Shaw at Rshaw@merrimack.edu. Also if these teaching materials are helpful to you, it would be appreciated if you would let the author know. Thank you.
Author's Comments:
The focus of this course is on older adults (rather than on the adult lifespan). The syllabus is arranged into four sections, with exams at the end of each section. The order of the sections is different from the order in the textbook, because students told me that ending the course with dementia, depression, death and dying was too much of a "downer." The syllabus does not include sections on Relationships, and Work, Leisure, and Retirement. If you would like to include sections on these topics in your course, Chapters 10 and 11 of Cavanaugh's book would be good reading assignments.
Each section of the course begins with one of the thought assignments. Students simply write a couple of pages on the upcoming course topic, before the material is covered in class. These assignments are not graded--students simply earn points for turning them in. They still do a good job, simply because they believe that I will read them. This structure was influenced by the "Writing across the curriculum" movement, and the idea that simply writing, graded or not, is a good way to learn to write. The students enjoy these assignments, because they get to share their ideas without fear of evaluation. I get interestingly candid responses from them.
The last thought assignment is graded, and is a reflection of the course material and on their first thought assignment. They evaluate what they wrote in terms of what they learned in the course.
The volunteering portion of the course is a great success. There is an organization here that pairs the students with older adults who live in the community and need someone to check in on them for safety, or provide some social contact, etc. The students love this part of the course, because they get to interact with real old people and relate that to what they are learning in the class.
Tentative Course Outline
Week / Topic / Reading
Part I: The Context of Aging
1-2 / Introduction, Approaches to Aging, and Methodological Issues /Chapter 1
2-3 / Demographics of Aging, Social Policy / Ch. 2, Ch. 14
3-4 / Biology, Longevity / Ch. 3 and Ch. 4 (114-120)
End of Week 4: Exam 1
5 /Sensation and Perception /Ch. 3 (93-101)
6 /Information Processing / Ch. 5
7-8 / Memory /Ch. 6
End of Week 8: Exam 2
9 / Psychopathology: Depression / Ch. 9 (295-306)
10-11 / Dementia and Caregiving / Ch. 9 (309-326) Ch. 10 (362-365)
11-12 / Death and Dying / Ch. 13
End of Week 12: Exam 3
13 / Personality / Ch. 8
14-15 / Intelligence and "The Fountain of Age": Creativity & Generativity / Ch. 7
Final Exam Week: Exam 4
Materials for Adulthood and Aging: Undergraduate Course
Raymond J. Shaw, Ph.D., RShaw@merrimack.edu
Thought Assignment 1: Thinking about your future self.
Your first assignment is to write at least 2 pages (it may be handwritten, but only if your handwriting is neat!) that speculates about what you think you will be like when you are in your early to mid 70s.
Your paper will start out: "When I am 72 years old, ..."
To help you think of some things to say, consider the following sorts of questions.
Personal characteristics
Activities
Thought Assignment 2: Aging and Cognitive Status (Part II of the course)
Older people are often characterized as especially forgetful. They wear glasses and hearing aids, they eat bland food, and they get easily confused.
Do you think this is true of a lot of older people, or just a few? Do you forget things? For example, older people often complain that they forget people's names. Do you do this? Does it bother you when you forget things? Do you ever go into another room to get something and then forget why you went there? Does it bother you?
One theory about aging and memory is that older people act the way they do because of society's expectations. A recent study showed that old Chinese people (in China) had better memory performance than old Americans--in China, according to the authors of the study, the culture doesn't stereotype old people as forgetful and so forth. What do you think about this?
Write a page or so (typed is better, but handwritten, if neat! is ok) of your thoughts on these ideas. Do you know any older people who are not like these negative stereotypes?
Thought Assignment 3: Problems of Aging (Part III of the course)
Many older adults worry that they will get Alzheimer's disease (AD). What do you know about AD? How common is AD? What are the symptoms? How do we know when someone has it? What causes it? What can be done for a person with AD?
Do you have any relatives who have it? What is it like for the person who takes care of the person with Alzheimer's?
I'm interested in what you have heard about AD; in what you know about it before I start lecturing about it. So I don't expect you to necessarily have the correct answers. Statements like "I've heard that AD is caused by using aluminum frying pans" are perfectly acceptable.
Thought Assignment 4: Positive aspects of aging (Part IV of the course)
Just what are the positive aspects of getting old?? Betty Friedan argues that old age is one of the best times of life, for creativity, and just general enjoyment, and that most older people have a great time of it. She believes that the pervasive negative stereotypes are ridiculous. One of the special benefits of old age, some believe, is that with old age comes wisdom. What do you think about these ideas? Are old people wise? Are all wise people old? What are the characteristics of wisdom? What is a wise person like?
Again, write about a page or so of your thoughts on these issues and questions.
Thought Assignment 5: Evaluating your expectations about late life.
I have handed back to you your first assignment. Look it over and see if you would change any of it. Write a critique of it based on what you have learned in the course. You may feel that you wouldn't change anything, and that your predictions about your life were accurate. However, you may feel you should change your predictions. I imagine that you will have a little of both. Select some of the things you said, and show how the course has either confirmed what you expected life to be like, or how your predictions were different from what is typical of people in late life, according to the textbook. Your paper should be 2-3 pages in length (it may be handwritten, but only if it is legible!).
REMEMBER!
This assignment will be graded on a 0-10 basis; that is, you will be graded for content, organization, etc., rather than just getting 10 points for turning it in.
Description of Writing Assignments: Adulthood and Aging: Undergraduate Course
Raymond J. Shaw, Ph.D. (RShaw@merrimack.edu)
There are two options for the writing assignments in this course. The first, the Library Option, will require that you read research articles and write reactions to them. The second option, the Volunteer Option, will require that you serve as a volunteer for an organization that keeps in contact with older adults who live on their own. If you choose the Volunteer Option, this is a commitment to that organization for the semester.
For either option, you will write 5 short papers. By "short" I mean at least 2 full pages (but no more than 3 pages), typed (or word-processed), double-spaced, 1-inch margins. You should have a separate cover page, but do not use any kind of report binder/cover--just staple the pages together.
Due dates: February 6, 26, March 19, April 9 and 25.
Read the descriptions of the two options, and decide which you want to do. You need to let me know by the first exam. At the end of this handout, there is a form to fill out and give to me for my records.
Library Option
For this option, you will read an original research article about the psychology of aging, and write a short review of it. Your paper will briefly summarize the article, briefly critique it, and say what you learned from it.
Summary. Tell what the basic question investigated was, and what kind of research methods the authors used to ask that question (e.g., laboratory vs. field, how many subjects, what kind of independent and dependent variables were used, etc.). In a sentence or two, describe the most important result(s). Thus, you must write about a research article, and not a review article.
Critique. Address such questions as: Was the research method used a good one for answering the question? Were there problems with the method that affected the outcome? What were the limitations of the study? Good researchers identify some of the limitations in their work, so look for that in the article.
What I Learned. Tell what you learned from the article. Try to relate it to something from the lecture or the textbook. If you write a good paper, then what you learned will have something to do with the basic question and the result of the study that you described in your summary section. Obviously, don't just repeat the summary, but go beyond it and relate it to big issues. I want to know what you learned.
Identify each of these three sections in your paper with a heading, just as I did above: Indent the paragraph and underline the section title.
The general tone should be formal and concise: Don't waste words. If you cite someone's work in your paper, do so in APA style, and have a separate page at the end with references. If you want to use the words of the author of the article, put them in quotes and give the appropriate text citation. For example:
I will evaluate these rather leniently. The general areas I will evaluate in your papers are: Technical aspects; Scholarship; and Organization. Each of these areas is equally weighted, and I may take points off in any or all of them.
Technical: Is your paper well written? Did you follow the presentation guidelines (margins, typing, etc.) and proofread for typos, etc.? Is it written in complete sentences that are clear? Poorly written papers make it hard to understand whether you learned anything from the article.
Scholarship: Does your paper show that you actually read the article and understood something from it? Essentially, I want to see evidence that you learned something. In summarizing the article, you should use your own words as much as you can, and this would provide evidence of your comprehension of the article. Also, good scholarship would relate the information in the article with other things you've learned in the course.
Organization: Do the ideas in your paper relate to one another clearly? Is there a coherent, logical, clear organization in your paper? While there are three sections, they should belong together, and there should be clear transitions from one section to another. Mainly, I'm looking for papers that I can read and understand easily.
Again, I won't be grading these very strictly, as long as you show some honest effort and demonstrate that you learned something, because that's the basic point of the assignments. A piece of advice: Some articles you might find could be very technical, and hard to understand. You will have a real tough time writing about such articles, so look over several articles before you decide which one to write about. If you have any questions about an article, just ask.
Another thing you might find helpful is to pick a set of articles on similar topics across the 5 assignments. This would make it easier as you go along, because you will gain some expertise in some area, and it will make each succeeding article easier to read and learn from.
The following journals are some likely sources (there are others): Psychology and Aging, Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (formerly just Journal of Gerontology), The Gerontologist, Experimental Aging Research, Educational Gerontology, International Journal of Aging and Human Development, and Aging and Cognition. Occasionally, relevant articles appear in other primary Psychology journals (e.g., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Marriage and the Family, and the various Journals of Experimental Psychology) and in some Medical journals (e.g., Journal of the American Geriatrics Society). Also, Developmental Psychology sometimes has aging research. There are other examples in the references list in the back of the textbook. I would like you to use articles from the last 5 years (since about 1991).
The title page of your report will have your name; the phrase "A review of" followed by the complete APA-style citation of the article; the assignment number; and the due date. If you make citations in your paper other than the article you are reviewing or the textbook, you must have a section titled "References" at the end, with complete citations of the sources. Number your pages in the top right corner, with your last name on the line above the page number.
Finally, you must include a copy of the article with your paper.
Volunteer Option
For this option, you will volunteer for an organization that uses phone contact and visits to keep in touch with (mostly) older adults who live alone. This contact ensures that they are well and safe. The director will come to class and talk about various volunteering options.
Your papers will be a kind of journal of the conversations and interactions you have with older adults. The general format of the paper should be to describe first the nature and days of contact (e.g., "Monday and Wednesday, I called Mrs. X on the phone."). Then, describe the conversation(s). Finally, relate what you discussed to other information you have learned in the course.
To be able to relate it to what you have learned in the course, you will need to bring it up in conversation with your contact. For example, you might mention that you learned in the course that many older adults have only minor problems with memory, while others have more problems remembering, without that being a sign of any illness. Describe how your contact person responds to that. The best way to approach this task is to tell them that you are getting course credit for keeping a journal of your contact, and that you need to get their response to it. Some of the contacts may not be particularly talkative, so you may need to prompt them a bit. The main thing is to enjoy your volunteer service and the opportunity to interact with an older person. They will generally really appreciate what you are doing.
If you find you can't get them to talk about the course material, you can approach this from the other side. That is, see what they do talk about, and look for relevant stuff in the textbook or notes. Alternatively, you can think about what you have observed about them, and see if your observations are similar to the types of descriptions of older adults in the rest of the course.
The title page of each assignment you turn in will have your name; the phrase "Contact Journal for [date] to [date];" the assignment number; and the due date. Be sure to number your pages, with your last name on the line above the page number.
For evaluating your papers, I will be looking primarily for evidence that you are keeping up your commitment. However, I will also grade your paper for technical aspects of writing, for organization and logical flow, and for the extent to which you try to relate your experiences to course content.
Relating your paper to course content is a critical part of the assignment. You should have a separate section in your papers headed "Course Content," in which you comment on how your experience relates to something in the textbook or class. If you don't have this as part of your paper, the maximum grade is 9/10 points.
This option has a number of purposes. First, you can learn first-hand what some older people are like, and see how good a job researchers in aging are doing at describing the aging process. Second, by having to talk about something you learned in the course with an older person, you will keep up with the course materials. Third, it is community service, and will look great on your resume. Fourth, it is actually fun to do.
To direct comments about the information contained in these pages, please write to marsiske@hpe.ufl.edu