Undergraduate Program Requirements

To complete the degree, students must earn full admission into the teacher education program. After graduation, they are eligible for licensure in early childhood unified, birth through kindergarten, by the Kansas State Department of Education. The preservice teacher education program is approved by the Kansas State Department of Education and accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.Graduates work with children from birth through kindergarten as teachers in public schools, private and not-for-profit childcare programs, and military or corporate early education programs. Additional career opportunities exist as education specialists, administrators and coordinators of parent education and volunteer programs in social service agencies, Head Start, and other community-based child care programs.

The pre-service program blends early childhood education and early childhood special education content knowledge and pedagogy into one program. Early childhood education students gain teaching experience in the licensed and nationally accredited, Center for Child Development, part of the Kansas Institute for Early Childhood Education and Research, an early childhood development laboratory school on campus.

Courses include:

• Curriculum for Cognitive and Language Development of Young Children
• Teaching and Learning in Early Childhood Education and Developmental Curriculum in Early Childhood Education.
• Reflective Practice: Infants and Toddlers
• Reflective Practice: Preschoolers and Kindergartners
• Home, School, Community Partnerships

Supervised, clinical internships working with infants and toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners and student teaching are an integral part of the preservice program.