Foundations of Early Childhood Education

1

Teaching and Learning

• The Teaching Profession—Teaching as a Career
• Teacher Preparation
• Beyond the First Year
• Growth Mindset and Multiple Intelligences
• Social and Emotional Learning
• Differences in Learning
• Unconscious Bias
• English Language Learning (ELL)
• Multicultural Education

• Review course assignments and expectations.
• Reflect on the pros and cons of teaching.
• Consider how teacher preparation has changed over the years.
• Review the purpose of teachers’ unions.
• Review the stages of teacher development and apply their understanding to a teacher case study.
• Compare growth versus fixed mindset and identify role in teaching.
• Assess their own multiple intelligences and identify how they can be addressed through instruction.
• Identify how students learn using cognitive, cultural, and motivational factors.
• Consider how girls and boys learn differently.
• Discern what exceptionalities look like in the classroom.
• Explore unconscious bias and the ways in which students are diverse (what diversity means).
• Review and use understandings of how English Language Learners acquire language and knowledge to teaching and learning.
• Consider the ways in which teachers and administrators are different from one another and their own student populations.
• Describe multiculturalism and what it means in the educational system.

2

The Foundations of Schools—Part 1

• History of American Education—The Colonial Period
• Educational Reform
• Race and Ethnicity 

• Trace the historical highlights that have influenced today’s current educational context.
• Compare the different reform advocates and movements over the last 100 years.
• Consider how under-represented groups have been educated and what challenges still remain.
• Explain how understanding the history of American education can inform current teaching practices.

3

Midterm Exam

4

The Foundations of Schools—Part 2

• Philosophies of Education—Five Philosophies of Education
• Psychological Influences 
• Western Philosophy
• How Schools Operate—Funding American Schools
• Future School Financing
• Governing American Schools

• Identify the five philosophies of education and discern the teacher-centered philosophies among those that are student-centered.
• Apply psychological principles to the way education is applied in the United States.
• Utilize the ways that Classical Western Philosophical principles are used.
• Discuss the varying school funding sources and weigh out the benefits and roadblocks for each.
• Identify the future funding paradigms and how they could impact school organization and structures. 
• Describe the school governance system and how it works well and how it could be improved.

5

Schools and Classrooms

• Current Classroom Reforms—Current Schools
• Reform Movements
• Factors in Effective Schools 
• Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment—Types of Assessment
• What Shapes the Curriculum
• Testing Culture
• Effective Teachers—What Makes an Effective Teacher
• Pedagogy
• Models of Instruction

• Review how the school structure currently looks and the contextual factors that contributed to our current system.
• Compare and contrast the school reform efforts that were created and explore the political and social ramifications of those reform projects. 
• Specify the factors that make schools effective and use them to evaluate school case study scenarios. 
• Identify what the visible and invisible curricula are and how they are comparable.
• Describe the factors that impact the curriculum and what their purposes are for trying to influence curriculum revisions or construction.
• Consider what the testing culture looks like and why the culture exists.
• Review the “sticky points" in education that cause controversy and discuss why they are controversial.
• Discuss the characteristics of teachers and what is necessary for today’s classrooms. 
• Identify what pedagogy is and the parts of the cycle that teachers should know in order to be successful.
• Strategize regarding what the current models for effective instruction look like, and identify what the most effective models might be and why.

6

Final Exam

0

Statement of Academic Honesty and Integrity 

1

Reflective Response: Teaching as a Career

5

1, 9

1

Topic 1 Lesson 2 Case Study 

15

1, 2, 9

1

Quiz #1

35

1

1

Reflective Response: Mindsets and Multiple Intelligences

5

2, 9

1

Topic 1 Lesson 5 Case Study 

15

1, 2, 9

1

Quiz #2

35

1, 2

1

Reflective Response: Unconscious Bias

5

2, 3, 9

1

Quiz #3

35

3

1

ELL Lesson Plan with Accommodations List

75

1, 3, 9

2

Reflective Response: The Colonial Period

5

1, 4

2

Reflective Response: Educational Reform

5

1, 4

2

Quiz #4

35

4

3

Midterm Exam

125

1, 2, 3, 4

4

Reflective Response: Five Philosophies of Education

5

1, 5

4

Reflective Response: Psychological Influences

5

1, 5

4

Writing Assignment: Video Analysis

75

1, 5

4

Reflective Response: Funding American Schools

5

1, 6

4

Topic 4 Lesson 5 Case Study

15

1, 6, 9

4

Quiz #5

35

6

5

Reflective Response: Current Schools

5

1, 7

5

Topic 5 Lesson 2 Case Study

15

1, 7, 9

5

35

7

5

Reflective Response: Types of Curriculum

5

1, 8

5

Topic 5 Lesson 5 Case Study

15

1,8, 9

5

Quiz #7

35

8

5

Reflective Response: What Makes an Effective Teacher?

5

1, 9

5

Topic 5 Lesson 8 Case Study

15

1, 8, 9

5

Quiz #8

35

8, 9

6

Final Exam

300

5, 6, 7, 8, 9

TOTAL

1,000