Early Childhood Education Degree Program
1. Graduates will promote child development and learning by using and articulating their understanding of young children’s characteristics and needs to create environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging for all children.
2. Graduates will build family and community relationships by understanding, and valuing the importance and complex characteristics of children’s families and communities.
3. Graduates will observe, document and assess young children and use systematic observations, documentation, and other effective assessment strategies in a responsible way, in partnership with families and other professionals, to positively influence children’s development.
4a. Graduates will connect with children and families by knowing, understanding, and using positive relationships and supportive interactions as the foundation for their work with young children.
4b. Graduates will use developmentally effective approaches by knowing, understanding, and using a wide array of approaches, strategies, and tools to positively influence children’s development and learning.
4c. Graduates will utilize content knowledge in early education by applying the essential concepts, inquiry tools, academic subjects, and use resources to deepen their understanding.
4d. Graduates will build meaningful curriculum by using their own knowledge and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate meaningful, challenging curriculum that promotes comprehensive developmental and learning outcomes for all young children.
4e. Graduates will identify and explain the importance of appropriate guidance techniques and theories as an important classroom management tool.
4f. Graduates will identify and explain nutrition, health and safety practices and procedures appropriate for use when teaching young children.
5. Graduates will identify and conduct themselves as members of the early childhood profession by knowing and using ethical guidelines and other professional standards related to early childhood practice.
Core Abilities Outcomes
Critical, Creative, and Reflective Thinking:
Graduates will be able to question, search for answers and meaning, and develop ideas that lead to action.
Responsibility:
Graduates will be able to respond by examining the relationship between self, community, and environments, evaluating potential impacts and consequences of actions, and making choices and contributions based on that examination and evaluation.
Information Competency:
Graduates will be able to seek, find, evaluate and use information and employ information technology to engage in lifelong learning.
Effective Communication:
Graduates will be able to exchange messages in a variety of contexts using multiple methods.
Multiculturalism:
Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of diverse ideas, cultures and experiences and the ability to examine their own attitudes and assumptions in order to engage others with civility and empathy.
Fundamental Areas of Knowledge Outcomes
Communication:
Graduates identify, analyze, and evaluate rhetorical strategies in one’s own and other’s writing in order to communicate effectively.
Humanities:
Graduates acquire skills to critically interpret, analyze and evaluate forms of human expression, and create and perform as an expression of the human experience.
Social Sciences:
Graduates use social science research methods and/or theory in order to analyze and interpret social phenomena.
Natural Sciences:
Graduates use the scientific method to analyze natural phenomena and acquire skills to evaluate authenticity of data/information relative to the natural world.
Computational Skills:
Graduates will acquire skills that emphasize conceptual understanding, connections among topics, and communication of mathematical thinking for the interpretation and solution of problems related to teaching in Early Childhood Education.
Early Childhood Education Certificate Program
- Graduates will promote child development and learning by using and articulating their understanding of young children’s characteristics and needs to create environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging for all children.
- Graduates will understand content knowledge in early education by knowing the essential concepts, inquiry tools, and structure of content areas, including academic subjects, and identifying resources to deepen their understanding.
- Graduates will identify and explain the importance of appropriate guidance techniques and theories as an important classroom management tool.
- Graduates will identify and explain nutrition, health and safety practices and procedures appropriate for use when teaching young children.
- Graduates will identify and conduct themselves as members of the early childhood profession by knowing and using ethical guidelines and other professional standards related to early childhood practice.
Core Abilities Outcomes
Critical, Creative, and Reflective Thinking:
Graduates will be able to question, search for answers and meaning, and develop ideas that lead to action.
Responsibility:
Graduates will be able to respond by examining the relationship between self, community, and environments, evaluating potential impacts and consequences of actions, and making choices and contributions based on that examination and evaluation.
Information Competency:
Graduates will be able to seek, find, evaluate and use information and employ information technology to engage in lifelong learning.
Effective Communication:
Graduates will be able to exchange messages in a variety of contexts using multiple methods.
Multiculturalism:
Graduates will demonstrate knowledge of diverse ideas, cultures and experiences and the ability to examine their own attitudes and assumptions in order to engage others with civility and empathy.
