"An Insight Into Children’s Psychological World" is a popular-science type of psychological course for college students or the public, which is a scientific study of changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span.  Psychological development consists of the generalized aspect and the narrow aspect. The generalized psychological development includes the germline development of psychology, the ethnic development of psychology and the individual psychological development. In a narrow sense, psychological development only refers to the individual psychological development. The research object of individual psychological development is the characteristics of psychological development in each age level of the whole process of life, including infancy and toddlerhood, preschool, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. This course focuses on the period from infancy and toddlerhood to adolescence. The study of this course can be applied to "Educational Psychology", "Child Psychopathology" and other disciplines.

This course covers both theoretical knowledge and practical application, which is aiming to popularize basic knowledge of child psychology to students, as well as to guide students to explore the laws of developmental psychology with the idea of empirical research, where in particular, to understand the influence of early heredity and environment on the later development of individuals, and to learn the application prospect of developmental psychology in early childhood education, family education, parent-child relationship, etc.

This course will bring students into deep thinking: Why do I become who I am now? Which people or things in my growing experience are still influencing me today? How will I develop myself with such characteristics? In addition, since the public currently has a lot of confusion in early childhood education and parenting, this course will address these issues to a certain extent and enable us to understand children more objectively.

The teaching goal of this course is to make students understand the laws and characteristics of human's psychological development of the whole life. Students are required to master the theories of psychological development, research methods of developmental psychology, laws of cognitive development and social development, and age characteristics. This course will be not only beneficial to students' own development and cultivation but also aims to promote students' research interest and professional ambition on developmental psychology, which will get students ready for further study of educational psychology, psychological assessment, psychological consultation and other courses.

1. Damon, W., Lerner, R. M., Kuhn, D., Siegler, R., Eisenberg, N., Sigel, I. E., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). Handbook of child psychology. New York: John Wiley.

2. Papalia, D. E., Martorell, G. D., & Feldman, R. undefined. (2014). A child's world: infancy through adolescence. Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill Education.

3. Berk, L. E. (2018). Exploring lifespan development. Hoboken, New Jersy: Pearson.

4. Feldman, R. S. (2019). Development across the life span. New York, NY: Pearson.

5. Gopnik, A. (2017). The gardener and the carpenter: what the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children. London: Vintage.

6. Gopnik, A. (2011). The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us about Truth, Love & the Meaning of Life. London: Vintage Digital.

Q1: Is this course charged?

A: This course is free of charge! As long as signing up for the course, you can watch the course videos when the course starts!

Q2: Who is the target of this course?

A: "An Insight Into Children’S Psychological World" is a popular-science type of psychological course for college students or the public. Whether you are a student, an office worker or a parent, in case you are full of curiosity about children's psychological world, you are welcome to attend this course and explore the mysteries of children's psychological world with us!

Q3: I don’t have any knowledge of psychology. Will I not understand it in class?

A: Don't worry. You will learn easily. Our course is a popular-science type of psychological course. Teachers will explain it in an easy-to-understand way. We also provide some small tips to help you better understand the content of the course: 1) In the column of Reference Books, we recommend a series of introductory textbooks. By reading the textbooks in advance, you will have a preliminary understanding of the contents of the class; 2) In class, the teacher will give many examples from daily life to help everyone understand the knowledge points; 3) After class, the course discussion area will be open to answer questions for everyone.

Q4: What can I learn in this course?

A: This course can help you:

(1) to master the basic knowledge of child psychology, learn to discover the law of individual psychological development with the idea of empirical research.

(2) to think deeply about your own past, present and future: Why do I become who I am now? Which people or things in my growing experience are still influencing me today? How will I develop myself with such characteristics?

(3) to understand the application prospect of developmental psychology in early childhood education, family education, parent-child relationship, etc.

(4) to clarify some confusion about early childhood education and parenting.

Q5: What is the schedule of the course?

A: Our course will officially start on May 12, and the video content of Chapter 1 + test questions will be uploaded then. After that, one or two chapters will be updated every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. (please refer to the syllabus for the introduction of chapter contents).

Q6: Do I have to take a fixed time to study every week? What if I don't have time to study every week?

A: Our course is open from May 12 to August 4, during which you are free to arrange your time to complete the study of the course content. There are totally 8 chapters in our course. It is recommended that you study one or two chapters a week and complete the corresponding test according to the course update. You can also make corresponding adjustments suiting your study progress and arrange your own study time, as long as you finish watching all the course videos + tests before August 4.