All Ages
Resources for Educators
This is a sponsored post. The sponsoring company compensated me for my time, however all opinions and text are my own. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.
If you’ve been in the early childhood space for any amount of time, you know just how difficult it is to find decent professional development opportunities that are not only affordable, but that won’t put you to sleep while you’re attending them either.
The struggle is real y’all.
However, if you’ve been a reader of my site for even a little bit, you also know that I was recently given the opportunity to test out a few courses from ChildCare Education Institute, or CCEI.
Now that I’ve completed both, I can say with confidence, that CCEI is an absolute game changer for busy early childhood educators.
This is a sponsored post on behalf of ChildCare Education Institute. I am being compensated for my time, however, all text and opinions are my own.
If you’d like to try being more intentional with your activities and encourage more critical thinking in your preschool classroom, I highly recommend the COG101: Critical Thinking Skills in the Preschool Environment course from CCEI and you can read my full review of that course here, but if you’re looking to go in a different direction and want to better understand your curriculum as a whole, then today’s post is for you.
Obviously, after having worked in a preschool classroom for a number of years, I already knew what a curriculum was and how to use one to teach my students.
What I did not fully understand, however, was how to go about evaluating one to truly determine whether or not it was working in the way that we needed it to.
After taking CCEI1001: Curriculum: What Is It and Why Is It Important? from CCEI, I now have a much deeper understanding of curriculum, how it should relate to your program’s goals, and the warning signs to look out for that tell you that the curriculum, as it is being used, is not working out.
In my opinion, the sections on how a curriculum should relate to the goals of your program were one of the best parts of this course and why I would recommend it to anyone that is looking to actually understand the reasoning behind curriculum and how they can better utilize it to teach their students.
ChildCare Education Institute’s online course, CCEI1001: Curriculum: What Is It and Why Is It Important? walks you through the characteristics of an effective curriculum and the process of defining program goals that are not only applicable to and effective for every child in your program but that also provide the best use of your curriculum. In addition, it explains the reasoning behind broader program goals and the interrelation of the major developmental domains in early childhood education.
In short, this course gives you a full, high-level overview of curriculum in the early childhood classroom and I would highly recommend it to anyone that is either building curriculum for or using it with young children.
Accessing the Course
Just like the previous course that I took from ChildCare Education Institute, this course was completed entirely online.
I didn’t have to travel to some random conference center or spend half a day listening to a presenter that was boring and getting tired of presenting the same information over and over again.
Instead, I was able to sign on to their website, work through the course slides at my own pace from the comfort of my own home, and then once I finished and passed the course, I viewed and printed my certificate of completion without ever leaving my couch.
What is CCEI?
As I shared in my last post, ChildCare Education Institute provides high-quality, online training courses and programs, applicable to those who work in an array of childcare settings, including center-based care, Head Start, family child care, prekindergarten classrooms, after-school environments and more.
Over 150 English and Spanish training courses are available to meet licensing, recognition program, and Head Start Requirements.
CCEI also has online certification programs that provide the coursework requirement for national credentials including the CDA and Director and Early Childhood Credentials.
CCEI, a Council for Professional Recognition CDA Gold Standard™ training provider, is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC), is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and is accredited as an Authorized Provider by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET).
- 99 percent of students say they would recommend CCEI to others
- Over 5 million online course hours completed
- Graduated over 13,000 early childhood professionals from CDA and other certificate programs
- Web-based coursework, available 24/7/365
- 30 hours of new content added each year
- IACET CEUs awarded for completed coursework at no additional cost
Still on the fence?
One of CCEI’s coolest features is that they allow you to try before you buy.
That’s right!
You can take a trial course to test out their platform and get a feel for the types of courses that they offer before making the decision to spend your hard-earned money.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, after taking two courses with ChildCare Education Institute, I feel like I can absolutely say that if you’re an early childhood professional, CCEI is the place to go for professional development courses.
Not only is it a breeze to get set up on their website, but taking the courses is done entirely online meaning you don’t even have to leave your couch!
Just sign in to the website, open up your course, and work through it anytime and from anywhere. When you’re done, they’ll do all of the work of submitting your professional development hours to state registries for you where available and you can view and print your certificate of completion right from your dashboard.
Whereas with other courses or training, just showing up and sitting there for several hours while a presenter goes over the information pretty much guarantees you a certificate of completion, the courses through CCEI require you to answer little pop quiz questions regarding the material throughout the course.
Get the answer right based on the material you’ve just read and you’ll move on in the course. Get the answer wrong and the course will automatically redirect you back to the slides that go over the information from that question, guaranteeing that you actually master the material.
This, of course, means that you’ll actually be able to take the information in the courses that you’re paying for and apply it to your classroom and your students.
In addition, you’ll have access to a discussion forum that provides the same type of learning community online that you would get in a classroom!
Between that and the sheer number of amazing courses available through their course catalog, there really is no reason to look anywhere else.
It really is the perfect way to earn your professional development CEU credits.
You’ll save yourself time, money, and frustration with their online format and you can do it all from the comfort of your own home. What more could you want?
