Early Childhood Education (Undergraduate Certificate)

The early childhood education certificate program will build the following competencies:

• Promoting child development and learning. Using a child development knowledge base, create environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive and challenging for each child.
• Building family and community relationships. Create respectful, reciprocal, complex relationships that support and empower families, to successfully impact children’s development.
• Observing, documenting and assessing to support young children and families. Use child observation, documentation and other effective assessment strategies in a responsible way, in partnership with families and other professionals, to positively influence the development of every child.
• Developmentally effective approaches. Understand and use positive relationships and supportive interactions, plus a wide array of developmentally appropriate approaches, instructional strategies, and tools to connect with children and families and positively influence each child’s development and learning.
• Content knowledge to build meaningful curriculum. Design, implement and evaluate meaningful, challenging curriculum that promotes comprehensive developmental and learning outcomes for every young child.
• Becoming a professional. Using ethical guidelines and other professional standards related to early childhood practice, demonstrate knowledgeable, reflective and critical perspectives to make informed decisions that integrate knowledge from a variety of sources.

Curriculum

The early childhood certificate includes 18 credits. View the complete list of required courses.