by Claire Miller
The College of Education’s bachelor’s degree program in early childhood education gives students the skills they need to teach pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students.
Now, the COE has expanded its program to Georgia State University’s Alpharetta campus, giving more students the chance to hone their teaching skills and earn their degrees close to home.
"The mission of the Department of Early Childhood Education is to provide authentic teaching opportunities for teacher candidates with diverse, school field-based components in all of its programs, including this new offering in Alpharetta,” said Carla Tanguay, coordinator of undergraduate programs in early childhood education. “We believe that all children can learn and faculty aim to develop insightful and effective educational professionals who are focused on student learning and development.”
The department has been working for more than a year to offer this degree program at the Alpharetta campus with the hope of expanding its reach outside of the university’s main campus in downtown Atlanta.
“With this degree program offering at Alpharetta, we can be accessible to more students and meet the state goal of producing more high quality, highly effective teachers,” Tanguay said.
The B.S.E. program in Alpharetta will mirror the one offered at the university’s main campus – the only difference is the location of the cohort’s classes, Tanguay said.
The 45,000-square-foot facility in Alpharetta, which officially began offering classes in fall 2010, has a number of state-of-the-art classrooms, places to study and free parking – factors that many GSU students are pleased to see on their first day of classes.
“I was pleasantly surprised by the facility, the parking and my cohort in general,” said Kiana Sims, an early childhood education student who began taking classes at the Alpharetta campus in January. “I love the small class size and I now have with 13 new friends and a great relationship with my professors.”
Students interested in enrolling in the early childhood education program at the Alpharetta campus for the fall 2011 semester must submit application materials by June 17.
For more information about the Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education degree program, contact Donna Bennett, coordinator of the Alpharetta ECE program, at 404/413-2200 or dnbennett@gsu.edu.
