Spring 2027

Social Development

Social Development explores how infants and children perceive, think about, and interact with the social world.

offering recorded4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Ashley Jordan3.2/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Ashley Jordan

Lectures used wordy scripts and sparse slides, making note-taking hard and often requiring re-watching; exams were described as very specific.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Discuss historical and contemporary theories of social development

  • Read, understand, and evaluate empirical literature on children’s social development across a range of topics

  • Evaluate a popular press article about a topic related to the course material

  • Compose polished writing about a follow-up study related to the course material

  • Discuss contemporary theories of social development with others in the course

  • Articulate cross-cultural and evolutionary perspectives on infants’ and children’s social development

  • Evaluate major methodologies used to assess infants’ and children’s social development

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

PSYCH 403, 414, 428, 449, 450, 456, 460, 462, or 464

PSYCH 503

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Ashley Jordan

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.36/5 from 11 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Ashley Jordan

Professor Ashley Jordan taught fast-paced lectures focused on research studies, with clear criteria and available make-up assignments for missed points. Exams tested specific study content via multiple choice and short answer questions.

Other students found Jordan’s lectures difficult because she read from a wordy script with minimal slide text, requiring video re-watching. They described exams as highly specific and noted extra credit was limited to replacing missed attendance points.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.29 GPA, 57.0% A/AB (n=100 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Past student reviews · Kristin Shutts

Kristin Shutts taught PSYCH 503 with clearly organized lectures grounded in research studies. Students found exams difficult but fair, and grading included attendance points and straightforward paper assignments. She presented material holistically, kept students engaged with humor, and no textbook was required, though substantial article reading was expected.

ASHLEY JORDAN is recorded teaching in Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KRISTIN SHUTTS is recorded teaching in Spring 2012, Spring 2015, Spring 2017. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1590
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 308Classroom Instruction0 / 180
DIS 309Classroom Instruction0 / 150

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Ashley Jordan

Professor Jordan’s lectures moved quickly and focused on research studies; some found them engaging, while others found them difficult to keep up with.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2015: 3.28 GPA, 61.8% A/AB (n=89 letter grades); Spring 2017: 3.07 GPA, 42.5% A/AB (n=87 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.29 GPA, 57.0% A/AB (n=100 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Ashley Jordan

Lectures used wordy scripts and sparse slides, making note-taking hard and often requiring re-watching; exams were described as very specific.

Past student reviews · Ashley Jordan

Students noted that make-up assignments were offered for missed attendance or participation points, while others said extra credit was limited to missed attendance or discussion posts.

Topics

  • Theory of mind, emotions, early social relationships, peer influences, morality, pro-social behavior, aggression, and social categorization.
  • Cross-cultural and evolutionary perspectives on social development.

Skills

  • Evaluating empirical literature and popular press articles on children's social development.
  • Composing polished written work about research studies.
  • Evaluating assessment methodologies for infant and child social development.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1286 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
PSYCH 503 · Spring 2027

Social Development

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:820:023537",
    "course_id": "PSYCH 503",
    "course_uid": "course_3324d21c181e7d4d2e36ba79",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "023537",
    "source_subject_id": "820",
    "title": "Social Development",
    "credits_min": 4,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "bf52bb4108637b5cc757623dafda174b3b275956ccbed1e639696dd84e364071",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}