NAEYC Accreditation

Program: B.S. Early Childhood Education (Licensure Age 3 through Grade 3 concentration)

Program Objectives (Age 3–Grade 3 Licensure-Focused):

By the end of the program, students are expected to be able to:

• Apply developmental knowledge across physical, cognitive, social-emotional, and linguistic domains for children ages 3 through Grade 3, including how development varies from child to child.
• Design instruction using evidence-based decision-making that supports each child’s learning needs, interests, approaches to learning, and capacity to make choices.
• Use contextual understanding, such as family, culture, language, community, and broader societal factors including structural inequities to inform planning, interactions, and learning experiences.
• Collaborate with families as partners by using respectful, reciprocal communication and relationship-building practices that reflect the diversity of family characteristics.
• Integrate community resources to support children’s learning and development and to strengthen supports for families, including building connections between learning settings and community organizations/agencies.
• Engage families in ways that promote culturally and linguistically sustaining practices, ensuring families’ perspectives inform classroom practices.
• Use developmentally appropriate, ethically grounded assessment practices to document children’s developmental progress for ages 3 through Grade 3 and to promote positive learning outcomes.
• Demonstrate proficiency with observation, documentation, and assessment tools, such as formal and informal; formative and summative, and select tools appropriately for the learning goals and needs of children.
• Use assessment results to plan instruction and learning experiences, including when adjustments are needed to better support individual children.
• Build assessment partnerships by collaborating with families and professional colleagues to support children’s learning.
• Create learning environments built on positive, caring, supportive relationships and interactions for children ages 3 through Grade 3.
• Use teaching practices responsive to learning trajectories, including differentiation, play as a core practice, and support for emerging executive function skills.
• Implement anti-bias, evidence-based teaching approaches that are developmentally appropriate and culturally and linguistically relevant, reflecting principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
• Demonstrate content and pedagogical content knowledge across key areas aligned with early childhood and primary learning, such as language & literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, arts, technology/engineering, and physical education.
• Apply early learning standards and curriculum resources to plan spontaneous and planned learning experiences that are stimulating, challenging, meaningful, and accessible for each child.
• Modify instruction through continuous integration and updating of content knowledge and pedagogical strategies to strengthen curriculum implementation and evaluation.
• Act as a professional in the early childhood field by participating in the profession and serving as an informed advocate for young children, families, and the field.
• Apply ethical guidelines and professional standards in daily practice, including expectations relevant to licensure in New Mexico (e.g., professionalism, responsibility, and ethical conduct in educator roles).
• Communicate professionally with children, families, and colleagues using effective communication skills, including technology-mediated strategies when appropriate.
• Engage in continuous, collaborative learning and reflective practice, using feedback and evidence to improve teaching and meet licensure-oriented professional expectations.

Program Effectiveness:

Outcome Measure #1: The Number of Program Completers

Outcome Measure #2: The Program Completion Rate

Outcome Measure #3:
Institutional Selected Data (The fall-to-fall retention rate in the program for each of the three most recently completed academic years)