Early Childhood Care and Education

Program Objectives:

This program will provide students with the skills and knowledge to be responsible for meeting the specific needs of a group of children by nurturing the children’s physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs; setting up and maintaining the early care and education environment; and establishing a liaison relationship between families and the program.

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. To promote child development by:
1. Knowing and understanding young children’s characteristics and needs, from birth through age 8.
2. Knowing and understanding the multiple influences on early development and learning.
3. Using developmental knowledge to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environments for young children.
2. To build family and community relationships by:
1. Knowing about and understanding diverse family and community characteristics.
2. Supporting and engaging families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships.
3. Involving families and communities in young children’s development and learning.
3. To use observation, documentation, and assessment to support young children and families by:
1. Understanding the goals, benefits, and uses of assessment – including its use in development of appropriate goals, curriculum, and teaching strategies for young children.
2. Knowing about and using observation, documentation, and other appropriate assessment tools and approaches, including the use of technology in documentation, assessment and data collection.
3. Understanding and practicing responsible assessment to promote positive outcomes for each child, including the use of assistive technology for children with disabilities.
4. Knowing about assessment partnerships with families and with professional colleagues to build effective learning environments.
4. To use developmentally appropriate approaches by:
1. Understanding positive relationships and supportive interactions as the foundation of their work with young children.
2. Knowing and understanding effective strategies and tools for early education, including appropriate uses of technology.
3. Using a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate teaching/learning approaches.
4. Reflecting on own practice to promote positive outcomes for each child.
5. To use content knowledge to build meaningful curriculum by:
1. Understanding content knowledge and resources in academic disciplines.
2. Knowing and using the central concepts, inquiry tools, and structures of content areas/academic disciplines.
3. Using own knowledge, appropriate early learning standards, and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate developmentally meaningful and challenging curriculum for each child.
6. To become a professional by:
1. Identifying and involving self with the early childhood field.
2. Knowing about and upholding ethical standards and other early childhood professional guidelines.
3. Engaging in continuous, collaborative learning to inform practice; using technology effectively with young children, with peers, and as a professional resource.
4. Integrating knowledgeable, reflective, and critical perspectives on early education.

Engaging in informed advocacy for young children and the early childhood profession.

Student Outcomes