Early Childhood Education Degree

About the Degree:

As an elementary education teacher, you will be the one to instill the love of learning in children. A Bachelor of Science in Education Degree, Elementary Education major with a Certification in Early Childhood Education will provide the basis for a career overseeing and teaching children from birth to grade three.

What Can I Do With This Major?

Your Future with Our Early Childhood Education Degree

As a graduate of Missouri Southern's early childhood education program, you'll harness your passion for education into a fulfilling, life-long career.

You'll be certified and equipped to teach and care for children from birth to the age of three at pre-school and daycare centers. Your degree will also well-equip you to continue onto a master's or doctorate education program to become a superintendent or principal.

What You’ll Learn:

The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate understands the central concepts, structures, and tools of inquiry of the discipline(s) and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful and engaging for all students.
The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate understands how students learn, develop and differ in their approaches to learning. The teacher provides learning opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners and support the intellectual, social, and personal development of all students.
The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate recognizes the importance of long‐range planning and curriculum development. The teacher develops, implements, and evaluates curriculum based upon standards and student needs.
The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills including instructional resources.
The MSSU Teacher Education candidate uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages active engagement in learning, positive social interaction, and self‐motivation.
The MSSU Teacher Education candidate models effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques with students and parents to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.
The MSSU Teacher Education candidate understands and uses formative and summative assessment strategies to assess the learner’s progress, uses assessment data to plan ongoing instruction, monitors the performance of each student, and devises instruction to enable students to grow and develop.
The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate is a reflective practitioner who continually assesses the effects of choices and actions on others. The teacher actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally in order to improve learning for all students.
The Missouri Southern Teacher Education candidate has effective working relationships with students, parents, school colleagues, and community members.

This Degree is Great for You if:

You have a background of babysitting or working in a daycare center and want to earn a degree to increase both your skills as a teacher and your earnings potential.
You feel you are best suited at working with very young children.
You want to develop your knowledge of child development principles and your skill in creating healthy, supportive environments for children.
You want to add an important dimension to your training as an elementary education teacher.