Currently the Michigan Department of Education Guidelines for the Early Childhood Endorsement stipulate that the applicant must hold K-5 certification and must have had one of their two required student teaching placements in a program serving children under the age of five. If Master’s level students enter the program with an Early Childhood Endorsement, there is no required additional field experience. However, if students enter without the endorsement, they are required to complete at least 100 hours of documented experience.
It is the student’s responsibility to locate a site at a preschool program and/or child care facility. The field experience must be in a regular program licensed by the State of Michigan; an NAEYC accredited center is preferred.
The student is to actively participate in all of the regular program activities, including planning large and small group activities, working with individual or small groups of children, and leading large group activities. The student is also to keep an ongoing log of the experiences with children. The log must contain (l) a record of the days and times of participation, (2) a listing and description of the activities in which the student participates, (3) at least two written plans for activities which were carried out, accompanied by self-evaluation.
It is expected that the student will exhibit appropriate professionalism during the time at the site. Only completed logs which include the signatures of the center personnel will be accepted. In addition, a substantial paper is expected that includes personal reflections on the field experience and a self evaluation of the overall experience.
Because of the size of our program, currently over 300 graduate students actively enrolled in the system, it is not feasible for us to have a faculty-supervised field placement for all students at the graduate level. It is important to remember though, that all but a handful of our students (those who are foreign nationals and plan on returning to their home country) hold Michigan K-5 teacher certification. Also, a large number of our graduate students earned the Early Childhood Endorsement at the undergraduate level so have already had a supervised field experience in a preschool setting. We do assist students with securing a placement. They are required to keep a log during their field placement and submit the log along with a paper upon completion of their minimum of their 50 hour placement. The log is to include: a record of the days and times of participation, a listing and brief description of the activities in which the student participated, at least two written plans for activities, and a self evaluation, which were carried out in the classroom, and personal reflections on the field experience.
In the Masters Program in Early Childhood at EMU field experiences are tightly connected to course work and are assessed through written assignments. They are designed to give students opportunities to apply recently acquired knowledge to the real
world of children, families, and early childhood classrooms and programs. In the following three required courses, students must complete work in the field.
CURR 602: Implementing Appropriate Early Childhood Programs
Students are required to complete an extensive observation in an NAEYC accredited preschool program. There are specific program components each student must observe and describe. Critical reflection of the program using the NAEYC accreditation criteria is to be included.
CURR 610: Family, School, and Community Partnerships in Early Childhood Education
In this course students focus on involving all families in the education of their children, while enhancing students' cultural competence through a number of different assignments. They may choose from two options, either interview parents, or attend and critique two parent meetings. The interview assignment requires that students interview two parents, including one who is different from themselves. They write up the interview and reflect on their reactions to the parents' views and their own success as interviewers. The second option requires that students attend two parent meetings in a school or program other than their own. In writing they evaluate the meeting according to several dimensions developed in class.
CURR 641: Developmental Assessment of the Young Child: Theory and Practice
Students spend at least five hours in the field in settings of their choice doing two assignments. The first is to implement a student-made assessment with a child or children between three and eight years of age who is culturally different from themselves. The second is to complete an observation report assignment using a variety of techniques to document children's development and learning.