FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
EarlyEdU Alliance® Membership Questions
Everyone is welcome to join the EarlyEdU Alliance! Whether you are affiliated with a nonprofit, college, university, or government agency working to strengthen the early childhood workforce, we hope you’ll join.
Complete a short online form that describes the conditions of membership and provides us with your contact information. Upon receiving the form, you will receive access to the members portal and all membership benefits. Visit our Become a Member page for more information.
Membership in the EarlyEdU Alliance is free.
Members have access to a rich range of resources available in the members portal. Resources include two online, self-paced faculty development courses (The EarlyEdU Approach and Teaching Online), the EarlyEdU Media Library, various teaching resources to support competency-based coursework, several modules for use in training and teaching, and access to a national Faculty Community of Practice, resources from our annual institutes, monthly webinars, and newsletters. Faculty affiliated with an institution of higher education have access to a suite of 30+ courses (online and in-person). Additional fee-for-service benefits are also available to members; training, technical assistance and customized Coaching Companion support.
Your current membership has no expiration date.
Yes! We are excited to announce our new MOU to establish partnership between your organization and the EarlyEdU Alliance. Please email info@earlyedualliance.org to discuss how this agreement can benefit your organization.
An MOU may offer cross advertising and branding, and provides institutions of higher education access to the Coaching Companion Campus Edition, and additional opportunities like custom media library curation, branded learning management systems, Coach and Educator Community Interface (CECI, formerly known as the Custom Coaching Companion), cohort faculty and staff training, system consultation, and more! Please email info@earlyedualliance.org to discuss how an MOU can benefit your organization.
Please mark these email addresses as “favorites” to ensure delivery to your inbox: info@earlyedualliance.org (main email), delivery@webdamdb.com (Media Library), notifications@instructure.com (Canvas courses).
About EarlyEdU Alliance Courses
All EarlyEdU Alliance members have access to EarlyEdU courses. Any teaching faculty affiliated with an institution of higher education can use these courses after taking EarlyEdU Approach, a short online prerequisite to course ordering.
EarlyEdU courses are free to all EarlyEdU Alliance members after completion of EarlyEdU Approach.
Specific credit hours have not been assigned to the courses, as these decisions are best made by individual institutions. Most EarlyEdU courses contain enough material for 3–5 undergraduate credits. A few of the courses are shorter modules that can be offered for fewer credits or incorporated into an existing course.
The courses contain a semester’s worth of material. Teaching a course in a quarter or in a shorter term will require adjusting the content to fit your course requirements.
The courses’ competency-based assignments set high standards for students’ demonstration of teaching practices, reflection on their own work, and feedback to their peers. Ultimately, you determine how best to use competency-based assignments to achieve the learning objectives of each course. We expect that students will have opportunities in other courses at your institution to conduct research and demonstrate academic writing skills. If you need to include such assignments in an EarlyEdU course, you should consider the workload and level of the course (e.g., 200 versus 400) so that you do not compromise the completion of the competency-based assignments.
To keep student expenses lower, EarlyEdU courses generally do not require textbooks, and as many readings as possible are freely available. You may add additional readings, a textbook, and writing assignments as necessary.
We recommend consulting your institution’s disabilities services office about modifying the materials to best serve your students. The courses contain multiple videos. Videos of teaching practices in early childhood settings are subtitled.
No. Alliance member faculty can use as many courses as they can teach.
We anticipate making online versions of all of the courses. See the courses page to see which ones are currently available for online delivery.
The online courses are currently in Canvas. If your institution uses a different LMS, we will provide you with files that can be uploaded to it.
Yes, all of the courses on our public page include the syllabus, competency crosswalk, and some include online course samples. Once a member, you will be able to preview all of the online courses.
Some cover birth to 5. We are working to have all courses cover birth to 5 or birth to 8. See the courses page for more information about specific courses.
Some of the courses may match those you already offer. We can provide more information about specific courses to help you compare them to your own. The competencies on our courses page may also help you determine whether they will work for you.
If obtaining EarlyEdU course approval is not feasible, your department might have a special topics course or a wild card option that you can use to offer EarlyEdU courses. You may also consider using our courses as a text book in one of your existing courses. This can help meet a Zero Textbook Cost effort. See the FAQ below "How can I use EarlyEdU course materials?" for additional information about adding material to the courses to satisfy your department’s requirements.
Your students need field placements or access to early learning settings where they can film their interactions with young children. If they are new to competency-based assignments, it may be helpful to explain the benefits of trying out teaching practices in a real-world setting. Students may also need support in making videos and using the Coaching Companion. Alliance faculty receive resources to help them use the Coaching Companion effectively with their students. If Covid-19 restrictions prevent your students from working and filming in an early learning setting, please consider using observational videos from our extensive Media Library.
No. Alliance member faculty can use as many courses as they can teach.
When using a particular style (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.), list EarlyEdU Alliance as author and include the course title. If not following a specific style, simply state “Adapted from EarlyEdU Alliance [insert course name].”
Teaching EarlyEdU Alliance Courses
Our intention is for faculty to deliver EarlyEdU courses in their entirety. EarlyEdU courses contain a complete set of course materials so that you can concentrate on observing your students’ growth in their use of specific teaching practices and giving them focused feedback.
To maintain fidelity to the EarlyEdU approach, plan to use most, if not all, of the materials. Specifically, faculty using EarlyEdU course materials will:
• Include assignments that require students to film themselves demonstrating specific teaching practices,
• Provide regular feedback to students on their implementation of teaching practices, and
• Organize small groups of students into communities of reflection and practice, to develop their capacity to provide feedback and build professional connections.
You may add or substitute readings and assignments, provided that you use the practice-based assignments, give your students regular feedback, and help them develop their own skills in giving feedback. We also encourage you to draw upon your own experiences and use your own voice to engage students in the course content. As part of our evaluation process, we will request information from you about any changes you make to an EarlyEdU course.
EarlyEdU courses emphasize the use of effective teaching practices in the field, and they require students to film themselves interacting with young children. For students who do not already have access to an early learning setting, field experiences will need to be established in advance. We have a tip sheet and sample consent forms to help you with this process.
Instructors teaching EarlyEdU courses can expect to spend less time preparing and presenting course content, and more time providing targeted feedback to individual students. Watching student videos may be time-consuming at first, but Alliance faculty report that they become more efficient in providing feedback over time, and that observing student growth is rewarding.
Your students should have field placements or access to early learning settings where they can film their interactions with young children. If they are new to competency-based assignments, it may be helpful to explain the benefits of trying out teaching practices in a real-world setting. Students may also need support in making videos and using the Coaching Companion. Alliance faculty receive resources to help them use the Coaching Companion effectively with their students.
Our online courses are a terrific option for many teaching modalities. Of course, using EarlyEdU Canvas is the easiest and most direct way of using our online courses. We set you up with a copy of the course and you add your students. Voila! You can teach directly from EarlyEdU Canvas. Faculty can also export course files and import them into their own LMS, or choose hybrid delivery – using the EarlyEdU Canvas online course as a free online textbook to flip their in-person course and focus in-person class time on practicing video analysis, collaborative learning, and formative feedback.
The EarlyEdU Coaching Companion
The EarlyEdU Coaching Companion is a video sharing and coaching feedback tool, and an integral part of the EarlyEdU approach. It enables working teachers to take what they learn in their college courses, apply it to their interactions with children, and then reflect upon their practice with peers and faculty. This, in turn, gives instructors the opportunity to provide timely coaching and feedback, and closely observe student growth over the course of a term.
The Coaching Companion is more than a site for storing and watching videos. It enables students and instructors to engage in dialogue about teaching practices in a virtual community of practice. The Coaching Companion satisfies standard requirements for protecting student data, and can be used in compliance with the federal requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
To help students become comfortable with the technology, the instructional materials included with the courses provide suggestions to instructors on how to gradually build students' comfort with the tool, the skills needed to film themselves, and using the Coaching Companion. The Coaching Companion tool itself includes short instructional videos for instructors and a Quick Start guide for students. We respond to emergent tech support needs within 48 hours.
Our Coaching Companion team provides tech support for faculty and students. Alliance faculty also have access to resources that answer the most common questions you and your students might have.
Please email info@earlyedualliance.org for information regarding your individual Coaching Companion account.