Education: Birth to Third Grade

Build a strong foundation

Do you love working with kids? Is it thrilling to instill a sense of curiosity and discovery in young minds?

As a teacher with a focus on early childhood, kindergarten and primary grades, you can use your creativity to help students grow and flourish during their most formative years.

Alverno early childhood / elementary education students study the art and science of teaching, and they apply what they’re learning through field placements and student teaching.

The Alverno difference

At Alverno, our faculty are current or former K-12 teachers with extensive classroom experience. We know that students have different styles of learning; as a result, you’ll explore how you learn best and learn how to lead and engage a classroom of students with different learning styles. Our assessment-as-feedback model will challenge you to achieve your full potential, and you’ll learn how to bring this effective approach to your own classroom.

Hands-on experience is an essential component of an Alverno education. We offer intensive field work placements in K-12 classrooms to prepare students for student teaching. This ensures that when the time comes for you to step up to the front of the classroom as a student teacher, you’re ready.

On campus, our nationally accredited Early Learning Center offers an opportunity for our students to observe young children. And the ELC hires many of our students as classroom assistants.

As an Alverno early childhood/elementary education student, you will achieve these outcomes:

• Coordination: You will discover how to make the best use of materials, time, technology, the classroom setting, and timing to create learning experiences.
• Conceptualization: You will learn to integrate content knowledge with best teaching practices in order to plan and implement lessons in the field.
• Interaction: You will be able to make professional decisions and adapt to the changing needs in the field classroom and school environment.
• Diagnosis: You will learn how to determine learning needs of K-12 students and how to design learning experiences to meet those needs.
• Communication: You will practice explaining concepts to children of all ages, and you will learn how to communicate effectively with colleagues, administrators and families.

Alverno early childhood/elementary education graduates are ready to become:

• Classroom teachers
• Reading and math interventionists
• Tutors
• Peer mentors
• Preschool teachers
• And more!