UW Online Bachelor of Arts in Early Care & Education

Описание: University of Washington’s online Bachelor of Arts in Early Care & Education gives you the skills and knowledge you need to make a difference in the lives of young children and their families. This innovative degree completion program prepares you to advance your career in a variety of fields, including education, social services, child care, and parent support and education. Learn more at https://www.earlyeducationonline.uw.edu.

Video Transcript:

[GAIL]
We've really seen this field — that's really supporting the most vulnerable children at the most vulnerable time — professionalize, and part of that is getting a bachelor's degree.

[RUTH]
Before I enrolled in the program, I was working for a low-income nonprofit organization for low-income families, and I was just a lead teacher, brand new. And one of the things I was told then was that if I'm going to keep that job, the lead teacher have to have the B.A.

[MATHEW]
I am currently in the middle of my first year of the online degree program for early childhood and family studies. I want to have a role, an administrative role outside of the classroom, to not only further help children but also further help teachers as well.

[GAIL]
The inspiration for this program was really about making not only an accessible and affordable opportunity for folks to complete a degree in early childhood and family studies, but also to make a degree that felt very relevant to what it is that you need to know and be able to do working with young children in today's world.

In this program, most of the assignments are very applied — you're learning about evidence-based practices that help optimize child development in an early learning setting. You're learning about those practices, and your assignment is actually to demonstrate that you can do those.

The classes are structured for students, and we call it asynchronous. So they can log in and watch the lectures, like go to class if you will, at any time of the day or any day of the week.

[MATHEW]
We have a whole week to get everything done at our own pace, you know. Each class has one due date for everything as opposed to you have every class has five different due dates out-, throughout the week for multiple assignments.

The great thing about this program that I also like is it's, it's more project heavy than test heavy, which I think is, for me is so much more beneficial. So when we do, when we do our filming and our shooting, we use our core groups, and we're constantly responding and giving each other feedback throughout the course.

[RUTH]
Recording myself on the camera was challenging, but over the course of it, I learned to just leave the video camera and let it roll, and then pick it, pick it back up and see: Oh, wow, I didn't even notice this happen, I didn't realize the gravity of this.

[GAIL]
Another important kind of difference between this and perhaps traditional courses is that at some point I think students are going to feel like they don't have a professor or an instructor, but they actually have a coach. So one of the things that happens is that the instructors really transform themselves into being kind of job-embedded coaches for these students. So we're giving feedback. We're giving encouragement. We're helping scaffold their practice.

[RUTH]
The program itself expand my knowledge and understanding and gave me some tools for my toolbox. It make me think more about everything I do in the environment, in how I set it up, my relationship that I'm getting, my communication.

[MATHEW]
The online early childhood family studies program allows me to fully grasp the tools that I am learning. I don't have to worry about taking time off of work to learn more about my practice as a teacher. I can instantly apply the tools that I am learning in my classroom.

[GAIL]
We have a lot of students that have started in the program as, you know, assistant teachers and they leave as lead teachers. We've had some students have, who have gone on to become coaches or directors of programs. We’ve had some that have moved on to get their graduate degree in a similar field. So we've had just great, great success stories.

[RUTH]
This is the best program ever, because it will give you the skills, it will give you the courage and the strength that you didn't think you have to be a better educator.