Department of Early Childhood Education

Undergraduate Program

The undergraduate major in early childhood education at Towson University is designed to help acquire the knowledge, understanding, and competencies required of a beginning teacher. The major leads to Maryland State Certification to teach children from birth through grade 3.

The program is built on the premise that special capabilities and understandings are necessary to teach in the preschool and primary grades. Therefore, the goal of the Department of Early Childhood Education is to prepare teachers as facilitators of active learning in developmentally appropriate environments.

Departmental faculty are uniformly committed to students. As an integral part of the developmental teaching/learning experience, and reflecting commitment to the university's intentional academic advising program, students work with advisers in a strategic and progressive planning process across all years at the university. Accordingly, to support their personal and professional success, all COE students are required to confer prior to registration each semester with their assigned advisers.

The program requires a total of 128 credit hours, including 70 credit hours in the arts and sciences, and 58 credit hours in professional courses.

The Early Childhood Education program is a screened major. Applicants must check the departmental bulletin board for updated information (e.g., semester deadlines for application, orientation information, etc.) All applicants must meet specified, minimum requirements to be considered for admission, including:

• a minimum GPA of 2.75 on all prerequisite and University general education requirements prior to admission to the program,
• a passing score on Praxis I, as set by the Maryland State Department of Education,
• submitting the results of a speech and hearing screening,
• submitting a complete application by the specified deadline (An application is mailed--in the semester prior to program admission--to each pre-ECED candidate with a "Program Information Data card" on file in the Department of Early Childhood Education (Blue Card), and includes the date that the application is required to be submitted to the department.),
• attending a departmental orientation session on the designated date, and
• return the “Professional Internship Behavior Agreement” form signed and dated to the Department of Early Childhood Education.

• Course Descriptions
• Suggested Sequence of Courses