Professor Givvin is such a gem. This class turned out to be one of the most interesting classes I've taken so far at UCLA. Each day in class, you review 1-2 articles of studies or literature reviews about educational topics. Some of the ones I remember off the top of my head are if professors providing powerpoints affects students' exam performance and how gender stereotypes affect working memory capacity. Professor Givvin makes each study manageable to understand and makes sure everyone's questions are answered. Her dog Jake is super cute too.

Class is 15% participation, 25% each for two midterms, and 35% final. Her tests made sure you understood the studies she went over, but there were no trick questions and she was always willing to clarify question during exams if you were confused. If you take this class, you will definitely take away lots of valuable information! It's (by far) been my favorite psych class.

Professor Givvin is easily one of my favorite professors at UCLA. She is an incredible person: funny, engaging, down-to-earth, and just GETS students. Her knowledge of educational psychology shows: she understands how to structure a class effectively to maximize learning while still making it fun, approachable, and interesting. She is just amazing! I will take any and every class she offers. She does not post lecture slides, which forces engagement with the materials in lecture and means that you cannot slack off. Clicker quizzes happen every class, which forces you to keep up with the material, which makes studying for the exams a piece of cake because you have been doing the work all along! Readings are research articles on different topics in educational psychology, which I always find way more interesting and engaging than a textbook. This also means that all the materials are free (besides the clicker). I wish UCLA would offer more education and psychology courses because I think they are just fascinating and so applicable to us as students. Bottom line, Professor Givvin is a wonderful person and I am so glad that people like her get to to teach at UCLA.

As someone who took this class for the grade distribution (and not out of interest), I actually found this class pretty interesting. The topics are all relevant and presented in an interesting way. Givvin is funny and has a very upbeat attitude. I would definitely recommend this class.

Grading Breakdown:
40% Midterm (Multiple-choice only)
45% Final (Multiple Choice + Short Answer)
15% Clicker Questions (3 points per class, lowest 2 scores dropped)

Exam Tips:
- She's not big on small details at all. It is mainly overarching questions and conclusions.
- She rarely focuses on method questions. However, know the articles that are only "literature reviews," as opposed to experiments.
- For the final, most of the short answer questions focus on the benefits of the article's topic. A question would be: name 3 benefits of x...
- You don't need to know the names of the authors, but it helps.
- We did not have one definition question all quarter. Again, it's just mainly themes and conclusions.
- Once or twice an exam, you'll get a question that lists words that come straight off the slides. They are easy to identify if you have read the slides enough.

With a little bit of studying (i.e. reading the slides a few times before each exam), you can easily attain an A/A+.

I absolutely love Professor Givvin! She is one of the sweetest, most caring professors I've had and the course material is super interesting! The course content mainly just consists of 2-3 journal articles per class, but she goes over them during class time. I know some people didn't read the articles, but I did and I definitely found that it helped me do well on the exams. I managed to get 100% on the tests, which were overall really straightforward. I would recommend reading (or at least skimming) the articles and annotating the main findings/methods. Attendance via Zoom is mandatory (she takes participation using iClicker questions), but you have 2 absences that won't count against your grade. I can't speak to how this class is in-person (I took it during COVID so it was online), but I absolutely loved it and I HIGHLY recommend!

Professor Givvin is what every professor should be like. She’s: easy to understand, compassionate about what she’s teaching, actively engaging with students’ questions and most importantly cares about what her students have to say. There are no tricky questions on her exams. Personally, I found all the articles we talked about very interesting, so I did not have to study much for both the 2 midterms and final. I was always excited for lecture. She has been one of my favorite professors in my three years at UCLA so far. Can’t recommend this class enough, please take it! You’ll learn something useful that you can apply to your life as a college student.

Professor Givvin genuinely cares about her students and is passionate about her field of study. The lectures are engaging and the assigned articles are extremely applicable to life. Her exams were always straightforward and taken straight from the lecture or clicker questions. As long as you take good notes and review clicker questions before an exam, you will do well. I learned so much in this class. I would definitely take her class again.

As one of my friends commented earlier this year, isn't it interesting how the teachers who teach about education end up being the best educators?

Professor Givvin is no different. I don't think she could have been more clear in her delivery of class content. There really isn't much I can complain about. Participation in the class requires an iClicker Reef account, which she uses to assess attendance via quiz questions (not graded on accuracy). There is no homework except for readings that need to be completed before the beginning of each class. Exams are clearly not trying to trick you; if you attend lectures, you will get an A. Slides aren't posted, so either watching the lectures live or reviewing them on BruinCast is important.

She has a cool dog, too.

I loved Professor Givvin! She is so knowledgeable and so sweet. I will say that she mentions she won't try to trick you on the midterms... but there have been many times where that's not true. She assigns articles to read before each class and participation is only answering clicker questions. Overall, I think if she made her exams a little less tricky and more straightforward I would 100% recommend her. But, she is a great professor and genuinely wants her students to do well. I found the articles we read very applicable and interesting as well. If you are debating taking her, take her!

Professor Givvin was amazing, I'm so very glad that I ended up taking this course. I loved that it wasn't an overly difficult course and that her explanations were so clear and she was so helpful in case you still didn't understand. I think in general she is just a very kind and compassionate teacher and academic professional. She's certainly well informed and passionate about the material, and she tries her best to impart the same to her students. She was always cognizant of our opinion and genuinely wanted to give us the best experience possible in an active way, which I think is rare for the department. I really liked that the class focused on learning through direct studies, which I think is a much more effective way of teaching an upper div, none of that route memorization of bullet points and definitions. She also took the utmost care and respect to be accomodating given the quarantine and the riots which some professors were not, I so appreciate her! The readings are manageable and I liked that there weren’t a bunch of assignments that were busy work, or an expensive textbook. There aren't any homework assignments beyond the readings or graded material beyond the exams. While I think doing some sort of mini-paper or assignment might have been interesting, its nice to not have to worry about so much in a core course. Gia was an excellent TA, she knows her stuff and her guest lecture was really well put together and interesting. How all upper divs should be!

Professor Givvin is life, I repeat LIFE. I have never had a professor who cares so much about her students. Her lectures were extremely helpful and it helped me understand the studies that were assigned every week. There is no textbook for this class, and you study the weekly research articles. The articles are on average 5-10 pages long so they do not take a lot of time. Totally doable. Her midterm is not tricky at all, if you actively re-read your lecture notes, you should be totally fine. It is very doable to score a good grade on the midterms. Go to her office hours if you have any doubts or if you would like to have a productive conversation. Initially, I wasn't interested in the content of the class but Professor Givvin changed that I would actually anticipate lectures.