University of Melbourne

This course examines patterns of behavior that violate standard rationality assumptions, including behavioral aspects of individual decision making, such as temptation and present-biased preferences, prospect theory, reference-dependent preferences, and over-confidence. It also examines happiness research and behavioral public economics.

This course examines the nature of social order and how need for order brings an inevitable consequence that deviance and non-conformity will result. Classical and contemporary sociological and criminological theories are explored that help explain the nature of social order and crime and deviance. Topics covered in the course include suicide, industrial disasters, religious cults, sexual assault, racism, terrorism and the witchcraze of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe.

This course examines the basics of creating music for video games. Aspects of the function and crafting of music for game use including, sound and visual interactivity, indeterminacy and the music dramatic narrative will be examined.

This course offers an introduction to the field of urban morphological analysis, and a range of mapping techniques relevant to urban design. This also entails analysis of the forces that produce urban morphology and the forms of spatial practice that are integral to it. The focus of the course is on examining how various techniques of urban mapping can creatively contribute to different urban design and planning concepts, approaches, and outcomes. The course uses the Elizabeth Street corridor (from Flinders Street Station to the Victoria Market) in central Melbourne as a laboratory for exploring these themes. This is an urban transect that slices through a range of morphological conditions, densities, spatial practices, experiences and transformational prospects. Each student visits this site on a weekly basis throughout the semester, mapping different layers of data. It is understood that not all students will commence this class with the necessary mapping skills; however, it is expected that students will be familiar with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, or can become so within the first two weeks. Additional tutoring is provided for those who need it so that all students are able to produce basic morphological maps for presentation in digital format. Students are not assessed on graphic or IT skills during this initial phase, but the acquisition and deployment of these skills will be required for the rest of the semester.

This course examines the development of pre-adolescent children's thinking abilities. Particularly, students explore the significance of cognitive, neurological, and neuropsychological factors in typical and atypical development. Current research on developmental plasticity and sensitive periods in development are reviewed. Special attention is paid to the prenatal and postnatal development of the central nervous system, as well as the impact of neurological insult on children’s cognitive development. Of particular interest are the challenges associated with assessing the changing nature of children’s cognitive competencies (executive functioning, reasoning, working memory, theory of mind, attention, planning and strategic skills), as well as how these are manifest in children with specific disorders (ADHD) or with particular physical difficulties (deaf and blind children). Special attention is paid to the development of language, reading, number, and mathematical abilities, focusing specifically on the diagnosis and remedial interventions of children with dyscalculia and dyslexia.

This course examines the important role of fire in Australian landscapes. It covers how fire has shaped the diversity of life in Australia over millions of years, how people have been using fire to modify Australian landscapes for millennia, and how contemporary fire patterns influence human society and ecosystems. Topics include combustion and fire behavior, prediction of fire patterns, fire ecology of plants and animals, Indigenous burning, climate change and future fire, and approaches for using fire, managing fire and sustaining biodiversity.