This class was amazing! I thought it was super easy and fun.
Professor Goff held lectures over Zoom and posted recordings later. I never went to live lectures, but she was a great lecturer and made everything really clear. I also never attended discussion or watched the recordings, so I don't think it's necessary to attend to succeed.
The grade was made up of two exams and weekly writing assignments. The writing assignments were based on lecture material and very easy, with each response being around 300 words. This will be graded by your TA, and mine was very lenient.
The exams were fairly easy as well. Some students complained about the first exam, but I thought it was very fair. The exams were open note, so everything was pretty straightforward. It was somewhat more application-based than pure memorization, but overall the exams were easy.
Professor Goff was super kind and understanding and I highly recommend taking this course with her!

Dr. Goff is awesome and is by far one of the best professors I've had at UCLA! Psych 130 was super interesting and honestly wasn't too hard. Your grade in the class depends on a midterm, a final, and 8 small writing assignments (about 500 words max). For the exams, she made it so that the exam you got the higher grade on weighed more and helped your grade! The exams were 50 questions each, open book, and you had 75 mins to complete them. The Final also isn't cumulative.

For the writing assignments, you had to write a short paragraph and honestly it took only like an hour max a week. The TAs also don't grade these too hard either (I recommend TA Ritika Rastogi!)

Prof. Goff posts slides before class and she gave 2 points of extra credit in the quarter. If you're looking to pick up a 4th class and are worried about the workload I highly recommend Psych 130; it really didn't even feel like another 4th class that I had to put THAT much effort in for an A+.

Though the material can sometimes be boring, I always felt engaged during class! This is one of the classes that I wish I could've experienced in person rather than taking it online. The material was incredibly interesting and very applicable to US and people around us, which makes it more interesting. I learned a lot and constantly find myself relating things about me and others to the material I learned here.
We had a written assignment every week pertaining to that week's material that everybody in the class enjoyed doing (it served as therapy for some!) that were worth 10 points each, there are no quizzes, but there are only 2 EXAMS (totaling up to about 70 points) that are open note, but just because they are open note does not mean it will be easy... trust me. Your grade is solely based on written assignments and 2 exams, so make sure to do well. There were two extra credit opportunities, one with my TA (taking a survey) and one offered for the whole class.
The exams were more difficult than I expected because they are *very* application-based. Though the slides help with background knowledge, you can really succeed in this class by applying what you learn in the slides to hypothetical situations you make up.

Professor Goff is really really great. I never thought I'd have an interest in developmental psych but her class made me want to take even more. Her lectures were so interesting, she explains everything really well. Her only downside I think is she lectures a little quickly BUT everything is recorded and posted on CCLE (attendance to lecture is optional) so you can rewatch her videos and slow her down to take notes. There's no textbook or reading materials; as long as you understand the lecture contents really well you should be fine for the exam, but it's not an "Easy A" class, you need to put in work. There are weekly assignments that are fairly simple but that's about it, and she offers extra credit.
Attendance for discussion section was also optional as everything was recorded. Personally, I didn't find them useful so you can definitely do without.
I definitely recommend this class and I DEFINITELY recommend this professor.

This is the third class I've had with Professor Goff, but she proves herself through and through to be an amazing lecturer and an absolute treat!! Her lectures are always so engaging and she knows how to communicate her material in a manner that is easy to digest. She makes her material relatable and her personal anecdotes were always relevant and entertaining. This class was super relatable, practical and eye opening to the world of parenting and I got so so much out of it. More than anything though, Professor Goff just genuinely cares for her students and has a big heart for teaching that was easily observable by anyone in class. I highly recommend those who take the class to take advantage of office hours because Professor Goff is very approachable and knowledgeable in the field. At one point, we got behind in lectures because we had so many questions because the material was so interesting, but Professor Goff was generous enough to offer to record extra (optional) lectures on topics we may have been interested in yet unable to hit in class. Man, that just shows where her heart and dedication is for education and her students...seriously so admirable.
In terms of material and workload, this class is extremely manageable. Honestly, the bare minimum to succeeding in this class is simply listening to all the lectures and doing the 4 written assignments (which were all very straight forward and often asked for our own thoughts). Exams were all multiple-choice and fair. I was never caught off-guard by any of the questions or material that showed up on the exams.
JUST DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and take any class offered by Goff if you can! Reviews won't do her justice.

Professor Goff is so incredible, she really brought this class to life (especially important during times of online learning). The class was straightforward, her lectures were clear and there was no gap between the information taught in lecture and what was expected of you on the exams. Some relatively short writing assignments to deepen your knowledge and reflection on the material that were pretty easy. Overall, a great course that I would recommend to anyone interested in the content material

Professor Goff is very knowledgeable and engaging. Lectures were organized well. She does talk insanely fast though, of which she is aware, which make it almost impossible to take notes during the live zoom. After week 2, I only watched the recordings just because she goes so fast, I needed to pause pretty often to catch up on my notes. Definitely take notes and record poll questions. The exam questions honestly are tricky and require studying. Written assignments were annoying but overall reasonable and forces you to stay on track. I didn't attend discussion at all after week 2, they were moved to a time I couldn't attend and just not necessary. Did 2/3 extra credits, I was unable to do SONA because there were no more studies left, so do that one early. No readings whatsoever, which was great. Occasionally we had supplemental videos. Lectures were shorter than the 1 hour 15 because we had videos in between and questions at the end. Overall, take this class.

I took Early Adversity (psych188b) with Dr. Goff in fall 2018. It was definitely one of my favorite classes at UCLA and it led me to choose to go into the field of early childhood trauma research. Dr. Goff is THE MOST down to earth and honest professor I've ever had. She knows what it's like to be a student and she always keeps things in perspective. She's also hilarious (she doesn't sugarcoat anything, she has some blunt humor lol), and great at explaining complex concepts with relatable examples. She also doesn't tolerate disrespectful or offensive comments from students, which I really appreciated in the context of this course material.
This course gave me a GREAT foundation for understanding neurodevelopment and translational research, and prepared me really well for Psych115 and Psych119A (both of which are very rigorous, difficult neuro classes). She knows how to get you to really understand and remember the way the brain and the body work without relying to heavily on rote memorization. The tests had short-answer questions, some of which required you to draw things like the brain and the fight or flight response. I really preferred this over multiple choice courses I've taken with Dr. Goff. If you're interested in the differential effects of abuse and neglect, in the development of disorders like conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder (+ treatments like attachment therapy), or in facial expression processing, I really recommend taking this. Some topics discussed include orphanages abroad, cults, substance use, abuse, and neglect.
That being said, this course can be very heavy. Do not take this if you have triggers related to abuse, neglect, etc. Dr. Goff will be understanding if you do, but it will be hard for you. Seemed like most of the people I took this class with did have a history of trauma, and that was something we discussed (no one overshared, it just tended to come up given the subject matter). Lots of discussions and interesting questions.

This was the one class where I wish I was able to get to know the professor more because Goff was amazing... but I always only ended watching the lectures after they were recorded. Anyways, Professor Goff was a very engaging and articulate lecturer, and I would take another class with her. The workload isn’t intense but it does get repetitive and annoying to do, however they aren’t hard to score full points on. Her exams, I would definitely say they were tricky cause I did terrible on the midterm but the final was more chill since I actually invested more time to know and apply the material. Developmental psych is interesting and honestly if you put at least 3-5 before each exam and actually know everything from her lecturers, you can get an A.

I loved this class! It was super interesting and Professor Goff is a great professor and cares about you and your learning. I strongly recommend taking this class.