Associate of Arts
Society · Culture · Education
Degrees and Certificates
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Elementary Education, -
Early Childhood Education, Certificate of Proficiency
Courses
COM 100: Introduction to Human Communication
Credits 3.0A topics-oriented introduction to basic theories, dimensions, and concepts of human communicative interaction and behavior.
COM 115: Introduction to Interpersonal Communication
Credits 3.0This course will introduce students to the concepts and practices involved in interpersonal communication interactions. The course will cover the many dimensions of interpersonal communication including, but not exclusively, fundamental building blocks, perceptions, and self-concepts as they relate to communication interactions, interpersonal relationships, nonverbal communications, interpersonal conflict, deception, and interpersonal skills and dynamics in personal and professional relationships.
COM 201: Public Speaking
Credits 3.0Study and practice of effective, audience-centered public speaking. Includes methodology of written and spoken communication.
ECE 100: Foundations of Early Childhood Education
Credits 3.0Introduction to the field of Early Childhood Education including history, philosophy, and the application of child development techniques. Includes assessment techniques for observing and recording behaviors, communication skills, guidance techniques, developmentally appropriate practices and the role of the teacher in early childhood settings. Students are required to complete hours off campus in a licensed childcare facility, or public school that serves ages birth to eight.
ECE 102: Early Childhood Curriculum
Credits 3.0This course provides the student with an introduction to methods and materials to assist young children three to five years of age in the learning process. Emphasis will be placed on assessment of children’s learning, arrangement of indoor/outdoor space, music and movement, dramatic play and creative media. Students will locate, plan, implement, and evaluate creative learning activities using a variety of methods and materials.
ECE 105: Health, Safety, and Nutrition
Credits 3.0Nutrition education, menu planning, childhood diseases and illness, and sanitation and safety in group settings will be introduced. Protecting the health and safety of young children and promoting the development of lifelong health habits. Communication with health professionals and parents on health, safety, and nutrition issues will be included for children from birth through age eight.
ECE 110: Infants and Toddlers Development
Credits 3.0This course will provide the students with an introduction to the principles of development in children from birth through 36 months. Emphasis will be placed on the individuality of the child and the adult role in providing a safe, stimulating environment for the development of the very young child.
ECE 120: Children’s Social Development
Credits 3.0Students will gain knowledge in a study of positive guidance and discipline techniques that can be used to encourage children to develop self-discipline and responsibility for their own actions. Students learn the importance of assessing, understanding, and enhancing the development of communication skills of young children to help guide and develop a child's self-image. Students will learn how to translate information presented into related skills and procedures that support children’s social development.
ECE 150: Practicum: Direct Field Experience Birth to Preschool
Credits 2.0Supervised experience in the education, guidance and care of young children birth through age eight. Course begins with four weeks of classroom instruction on developmentally appropriate curriculum, guidance techniques, and age appropriate activities. Students will complete first aid certification, and must show proof of fingerprint clearance before student is placed at a center for lab.
ECE 171: Child Growth and Development
Credits 3.0This course gives students a broad, comprehensive view of the science of human development at each stage of development from conception through adolescence. Considers the biological, cognitive, physical, and social aspects of development from a knowledge base of theory, research, and current issues. Students will apply learning to developmentally appropriate principles and practices that guide relationships and learning experiences for children through adolescence. Substantial discussion will include family, culture, ethnicity, and gender. This course is identical to PSY 171.
ECE 210: Home, School, and Community Relations
Credits 3.0This course stresses the importance of family. Students will learn the specific attitudes, philosophies, and practical techniques that teachers in any setting can find useful in building relationships with families.
ECE 220: Introduction to Early Childhood Special Education
Credits 3.0An overview of the history of special education, assessment, intervention, and curriculum will be introduced. This course puts emphasis on current educational practices and related educational theories including identification, causes, and characteristics of students with exceptionalities birth through age eight. Observation and participation hours in a special education setting required.
ECE 281: Children’s Literature
Credits 3.0Introduction to children's literature with a focus on how to effectively choose and use children's literature in educational and other contexts. Considers selection guidelines, storytelling, interpretation, and evaluation of children’s books. Students will discuss developmentally appropriate practice in the selection of books and stories for children. Identical to ENG 281 and EDU 281.
EDU 200: Introduction to Education
Credits 3.0Overview of the historical, political, economic, social, and philosophical factors that influence education and make it so complex. Opportunity for students to assess their interest and suitability for teaching.
EDU 222: Introduction to Special Education
Credits 3.0An introductory level course with an emphasis on the history of special education in society and the United States, legal influences on the provision of special education services to disabled students, and characteristics and instructional approaches to educating disabled children.
EDU 230: Cultural Diversity in Education
Credits 3.0Examination of the relationship of cultural values to the formation of the child's self-concept and learning styles. Examination of the role of prejudice, stereotyping, and cultural incompatibilities in education. Emphasis on preparing future teachers to offer an equal educational opportunity to children of all cultural groups.
EDU 234: Elementary ESL/SEI Methods
Credits 3.0This course provides the student with legal, historical, demographic, societal, educational, and psychological foundations that impact ELL language instruction. It meets the ADE SEI Elementary Education Endorsement requirement.
EDU 281: Children’s Literature
Credits 3.0Introduction to children's literature with a focus on how to effectively choose and use children's literature in educational and other contexts. Considers selection guidelines, storytelling, interpretation, and evaluation of children’s books. Students will discuss developmentally appropriate practice in the selection of books and stories for children. Identical to ECE 281 and ENG 281.
ENG 281: Children’s Literature
Credits 3.0Introduction to children's literature with a focus on how to effectively choose and use children's literature in educational and other contexts. Considers selection guidelines, storytelling, interpretation, and evaluation of children’s books. Students will discuss developmentally appropriate practice in the selection of books and stories for children. Identical to ECE 281 and EDU 281.
GEN 100: Beginning Genealogy
Credits 2.0Students will be learning how to create a family tree and learn about their family history. This course will also help students know where to search for family historical information, including dates, location, and events that surround their ancestor’s lives.
GEN 101: Genealogy Search
Credits 2.0This course will help students with genealogical and family history research and use it to grow their family tree. Students will have the opportunity to focus on an individual or on a small group of their ancestors. Students will gain a better understanding of events in their family history and explore personal and statistical details surrounding their family tree. Students will develop a secure knowledge of researching methodologies and genealogical proofs according to correct standards to definitively validate their research findings.
HIS 104: The Development of Europe to 1650
Credits 3.0Survey and development of western thought, culture, and political history from ancient times to 1650. This course of study includes the rise of the city in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the rise of Greece and Rome, the Byzantine Empire and the Middle Ages in western Europe, the Renaissance and Reformation, exploration and expansion, and the century of religious warfare.
HIS 105: The Development of Europe Since 1650
Credits 3.0Survey and development of western thought, culture, and political history from 1550 to present day. This course of study includes the century of religious warfare, the age of Absolutism and Constitutionalism, the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the Nation-State, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and post-Cold War western world and globalism.
HIS 111: History of China to 1600
Credits 3.0Survey of the development of Chinese culture and society from early man to the Ming Dynasty and European penetration. Students will become familiar with continuity and change in Chinese history, from distinct features of homo erectus fossil finds in China, through the traditional society encountered by European traders in the seventeenth century. Topics will include the physical, climatological, and population characteristics of the region, contacts with surrounding cultures, the cultural, philosophical, and religious justifications for centralized imperial rule, traditional social structure, and social roles from the village level to the imperial court, and dynastic emergence, collapse, and reform. Chinese developments in writing, literature, art, science, and engineering will be reviewed at each historical stage.
HIS 112: History of China 1600 to Present
Credits 3.0Survey of the development of Chinese culture and society from the period of early European contact under the Ming Dynasty (1577) through modern political and economic developments in China today. Students will become familiar with social and economic traditions of traditional China, the role of central Asian populations in Chinese polity, and the conservative role of traditional Chinese bureaucracy. Pressures created by European contact, trade, technological change, and conflicts on the borders of China will be described along with centralized efforts to control and resist change. Decline of centralized power in the nineteenth century, the Republican/Nationalist revolution, the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party, and the internal and external wars from 1937 to 1949 will be reviewed. Policies and institutions of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 through the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution will be studied along with economic, political, and military changes in the post-Mao era.
HIS 131: U.S. History to 1877
Credits 3.0Colonial America and the United States from pre-Columbian era to 1877. This course of study includes units on discovery, colonization, the formation of the American Union, Constitutional principles, westward expansion, origins of north/south conflict, the Civil War and Reconstruction. Significant economic and social developments are placed in their historical context.
HIS 132: U.S. History from 1877 to Present
Credits 3.0The United States since 1877. This course of study includes units on industrialization, the development of the west, the progressive era, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War and recent American history. Significant economic and social developments are placed in their historical context.
POS 110: American Government and Politics
Credits 3.0Explores the history of the U.S. Constitution and interpretations of that document (past and present). Analyzes constitutional civil liberties and civil rights for minorities, the uniqueness of American Federalism, the American political process (media, public opinion, political parties, and elections), and the principles and structure of American national government and how that government makes policy.
POS 120: World Politics
Credits 3.0Examines international relations and foreign policy. This course of study includes units on theories in world politics, history of foreign relations, international systems, actors within international systems, warfare versus international cooperation, and economic relations. This course is designed for full-time students who are Political Science majors, or are filling General Education requirements.
PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology
Credits 3.0A general survey of the important concepts in psychology with traditional theories and modern developments. It includes, but is not limited to, such topics as the history of psychology, the biological foundations of behavior, learning, memory, problem solving, sensation and perception, states of consciousness, motivation, emotions, personality, intelligence, gender and sexuality, and abnormal behavior.
PSY 171: Child Growth and Development
Credits 3.0This course gives students a broad, comprehensive view of the science of human development at each stage of development from conception through adolescence. Considers the biological, cognitive, physical, and social aspects of development from a knowledge base of theory, research, and current issues. Students will apply learning to developmentally appropriate principles and practices that guide relationships and learning experiences for children through adolescence. Substantial discussion will include family, culture, ethnicity, and gender. This course is identical to ECE 171.
PSY 220: Introduction to Statistics
Credits 3.0Introduces statistical methods as applied to collecting, tabulating, analyzing, presenting, and interpreting data. Topics covered include frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, elementary probability theory, estimation, hypothesis testing, regression, and correlation. A basic course for students in business, behavioral and social sciences. Identical to MAT 160.
PSY 230: Social Psychology
Credits 3.0The course presents an analysis of the way individuals think, feel, and behave in social situations and what factors influence our social behavior. The dynamics of individual and group behavior, and the perception of gender and ethnic differences as applied to the development of attitudes and values are also presented.
PSY 240: Abnormal Psychology
Credits 3.0This is a survey course that includes historical and contemporary definitions of the theories and research regarding the field of abnormal psychology. It includes assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of anxiety disorders, mood disorders, dissociative disorders, stress and physical health, personality disorders, body disorders, schizophrenic disorders, and life-span disorders.
PSY 250: Developmental Psychology
Credits 3.0The study of individual behavior from conception through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle and old age. Determiners of psychological growth: motor, social, emotional, intellectual, language, and personality development are presented.
SOC 101: Introduction to Sociology
Credits 3.0Examines the nature and scope of sociology, its terminology and concepts; studies sociological perspectives, social processes, social institutions, development of society, and characteristics of social life.
SOC 110: Marriage and the Family
Credits 3.0This course studies practices and theories of how relationships are formed, courting practices and adjustment strategies to couple and marital living. This course also covers problems and conflict resolutions associated with marriage and family life, and examines how children affect marriage, divorce, and remarriage relationships.
SOC 201: Social Problems
Credits 3.0Studies the principal social problems of contemporary America: delinquency, crime, violence, substance abuse, education, minority relationships, aging, population, and ecology. Includes historical background and global perspective of the same.
SOC 210: Racial and Ethnic Relations
Credits 3.0Problems of minorities in heterogeneous societies. Evaluates theories of prejudice and research dealing with discrimination, desegregation, and assimilation.
SSE 110: Introduction to Social Work
Credits 3.0This course examines the profession of social work, its value base, field of practice, and societal role. Major social problems, philosophies of social welfare provision, program and policy initiative, and the response of social work as a profession are addressed. In addition, the unique challenges and limitations of rural social work and working with populations of individuals existing within various social welfare systems.
SSE 183: Introductory Ethics: A Social Issues Perspective
Credits 3.0 3.0This course is an introduction to ethics, incorporating historical and multicultural perspectives, and analyzing contemporary social issues.