ECE Associate Degree Curriculum

Achieve your true potential! This course will help you sharpen existing skills, build on your strengths, and discover the best ways to learn. You'll identify your learning styles, learn new behaviors to ensure college success, and maximize your learning as you complete your program of study.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Identify personal strengths and traits used to succeed in motivating and setting goals to complete higher education.
• Describe the requirements for successful online learning.
• Discuss the value of goal setting and time management.
• Explain methods to achieve effective reading comprehension and note-taking.
• Recognize effective academic writing and types of plagiarism.
• Describe strategies for online testing.
• Explain the role of critical thinking in problem solving.
• Identify the necessary skills for successful online research.

Credit Hours: 3

Introduction to Computers provides you with foundational skills and knowledge needed for today's technology-based careers. You'll learn the components of systems—from the CPU and memory to input devices and peripherals—and how these components interact with an operating system to perform critical tasks. Keeping current with fast-changing computer technologies, this course will discuss the computer technologies today that are allowing the creation of a virtualized mobile workforce. It will explore how computers connect to the internet, what services can be found online, and what dangers exist in the form of viruses, Trojans, and other malware. The course will also familiarize you with the basics of today's office productivity applications and help to establish a foundation for working with these different types of applications, including spreadsheets and presentation-creation tools.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Identify all of the major types of computing devices and their internal and external components.
• Compile a list of the various computer operating systems that are utilized today and identify characteristics about each one.
• Relate the various cloud-based technologies to the virtual and remote abilities that are utilized in a professional environment.
• Describe modern office productivity suite applications.
• Illustrate basic office software tasks using Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
• Characterize the role computer networking plays in society and identify current networking technologies.
• List the hardware components, software applications, and IT protocols that make the internet possible today.
• Apply basic maintenance tasks on your computer to combat viruses, malware, and computing inefficiencies.

Credit Hours: 3

This course offers an introduction to basic writing skills that are especially relevant to academic assignments. The course focuses on APA paragraph development and organization in conjunction with a review of basic grammar and mechanics. The course also covers basic techniques for critically editing and revising one's work.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Use appropriate style, grammar, and mechanics in writing assignments.
• Compose a strong paragraph with attention to the following: topic sentences; and effective use of transitions.
• Identify and use a variety of essay structures, including expository, descriptive, narrative, comparison and contrast, and persuasion/argumentative.
• Organize, develop, and produce a fully developed five-paragraph essay.
• Differentiate and apply correct techniques for prewriting, writing, and proofreading using a variety of styles.
• Correctly apply the rules of APA for use in direct or indirect quotations and reference citations.

Credit Hours: 3

This course provides an overview of technological advances over the span of human history. Topics include the interrelationship of technology and culture; ethics and morals as they relate to technological progress; energy; ecology; demography; war and politics; and the unintended consequences of globalization, including social inequality, climate change, and global warming.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Explain how technology and culture are interrelated, and outline technological advances from ancient times to the present.
• Discuss different perspectives on ethics and morals as they relate to technological applications.
• Explain basic concepts related to energy, including the pros and cons of nonrenewable and renewable sources of energy.
• Discuss basic concepts of ecology, including the environmental challenges of global warming and climate change.
• Explain basic concepts of demography, especially as they apply to population growth.
• Describe how war and politics have affected nations as they adapted to advances in technologies.
• Explain the origins of global inequality, including colonialism and capitalism.
• Discuss different approaches to measuring the evolution of technologies, the unintended consequences of globalization, and the prospects of a paradigm shift.

Credit Hours: 3

This course offers a look at the foundations of early childhood education, current trends, and the importance of educating young children from birth to age eight. You'll learn how to meet the needs of every child in every area of development, background, and ability.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe early childhood education, and explain how the current trends reflect the past influences.
• Explain how to support child development with the use of developmentally appropriate practices.
• Explain how teachers meet the individual and cultural needs of all of their students.
• Describe how a teacher can create positive relationships with families and caring communities in the classroom.
• Design curriculum plans that will enhance learning and development.
• Utilize effective strategies for teaching various subjects including language arts, math, science, and social studies.
• Employ effective strategies for helping children become aware of the world around them as well as their own emotions, health, and physical fitness.
• Describe children's learning, and implement appropriate teaching strategies to foster continued growth.

Credit Hours: 3

The ability to communicate well is essential to success in any professional environment. English Composition II is organized to provide you with a broad understanding of multiple types of written communication. Far from being just academic exercises, formal writing skills allow you to relate to the world in ever-increasing ways. Simply put, good writing is good thinking. As you master various techniques of effective writing, you'll note a change in the way you process information, and those around you (including your employer) will also note the transformation.

English Composition II begins with the assumption that you've attained basic writing skills through completion of English Composition I. So, in fact, English Composition II is a continuation of English Composition I. In that light, you'll be expected to access and review basic concepts covered in English Composition I and, in particular, the sections on grammar and mechanics.

English Composition II begins by offering you tips on college writing, active reading, and study strategies at the college level. Next, you'll explore the framework for drafting a college essay, including elaborate explorations for finding a topic, assessing your audience, and determining the purpose of your essay as you identify its thesis and craft a thesis statement.

Next, because college essays often require research, you'll be introduced to strategies for finding and using sources. Based on this preparatory foundation, you'll be challenged to analyze essays in all of the various rhetorical modes, which, in turn, will prepare you to write college-level essays for these different patterns of development.

The balance of this online text is devoted to the specifics of reading, analyzing, and writing college-level essays, including description, narration, illustration, process analysis, comparison and Contrast, classification and Division, definition, cause and Effect, argument, and business applications.

By the end of EN130, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe the nature of academic writing at the college level.
• Understand and apply the principles of active reading.
• Comprehend and apply the structure of a college essay.
• Develop an essay thesis that's supported by facts, authorities, and examples.
• Apply the principles of revision and editing.
• Write an academic essay supported by relevant and credible sources.
• Critically evaluate essays in all of these patterns of development:

  • Narrative, Descriptive, Illustration, Process, Comparison and contrast, Definition, Classification and division, Cause and effect, Argument.
• Create effective, engaging, and informative essays in all of these patterns of discourse through the following:

  • A deep understanding of the writing process; Organizing an essay in terms of space order, time order, or order of importance; Creating attention-getting introductions and memorable conclusions; Using facts, logical reasoning, examples, and authorities to support your thesis; Identifying and avoiding logical fallacies; Effectively applying the techniques of persuasion; Blending two or more patterns of development in a single essay.

Credit Hours: 3

View General Education Elective (Science 100-200 Level) offerings.

This course examines childhood development by observing physical and psychosocial factors that lead to cognitive, language, and literacy development according to a child's age.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe current theories and types of research in early childhood development.
• Explain sociocultural, economic, emotional, and psychological factors associated with becoming parents.
• Discuss assessment and care of newborns, health issues involved with infancy, and family changes after the birth of a new child.
• Use theories related to physical, cognitive, language, and literacy development of toddlers.
• Apply psychosocial, language, and literacy development in children ages one through three.
• Recognize expected patterns of physical and motor development in children ages four through five and the major factors that influence them.
• Identify cognitive development in children ages four through five and physical development in children ages six through nine.
• State factors influencing emotional, neurological, and motor development in children ages six through nine.

Credit Hours: 3

This course focuses on the purpose of curriculum, the elements to consider when developing curriculum, and how to meet the needs of all children in your classroom.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Explain Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) as it relates to curriculum in the early childhood classroom.
• Plan small and large group activities that are developmentally appropriate.
• Describe the space and materials needed in an early childhood classroom that complement a child's ability to gain self-regulation.
• Discuss assessments and evaluations and how to effectively share these with caregivers.
• Explain the aesthetic and affective domains and how to effectively implement these in DAP.
• Explain the cognitive and language domains and how to effectively implement these in DAP.
• Explain the physical and social domains and how to effectively implement these in DAP.
• Create organized, effective DAP curriculum that integrates play.

Credit Hours: 3

Teachers who love teaching teach children to love learning. Have you ever had a child stick their tongue out at you? How about the eye roll? Behaviors such as those are why courses such as this exist. This course will take you through guidance and discipline, two very important aspects in the world of teaching. In this course, you'll learn the reasoning behind a child's behavior and explore why a "one size fits all" approach is rarely effective in the classroom.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Discuss the physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development impacting child behavior.
• Explain ways to prevent discipline problems through the classroom environment and program planning.
• Describe how desirable behavior can be achieved through effective modeling and communication.
• Explain how to help children understand and accept limits.
• Contrast punishment versus discipline.
• Describe childlike behaviors and unmet needs that lead to behavior problems.
• Discuss how to meet children's academic, social, cultural, linguistic, stress, and vulnerability needs.
• Analyze discipline problems from knowledge previously gained.

Credit Hours: 3