Early childhood Higher Education Options Fact Sheet

ECHO Fact Sheet

Early Childhood Higher Education Options (ECHO) is a consortium of university faculty from public and private Kansas institutions working together to meet the teacher standards specified by the Kansas State Board of Education for the Early Childhood Unified License.

Develop institutional curricula that meet the licensure standards
Develop courses to be shared inter-institutionally
Develop learning resources to support on-campus instruction

ECHO Participants

College/University Faculty	Representative(s) at ECHO Meetings
Associated Colleges of Central Kansas	Jeanne Schweitzer
Emporia State University	Eileen Hogan
Fort Hays State University	Art Hoernicke
Kansas State University	Mary Deluccie, Browyn Fees, Ann Murray, LuAnn Hoover
Pittsburg State University	Duane Whitbeck, Jan Vetter-Barkley, Marti York
Southwestern College	Shawn Neises
University of Kansas	Eva Horn, Barbara Thompson, David Lindeman
Wichita State University	Linda Mitchell
Washburn University	Judith McConnell

Other Representation at ECHO Meetings: Kansas State Department of Education, Kansas Board of Regents, Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, Kansas Access to Early Childhood Higher Education Committee

ECHO Consortium Achievements

Supported university redesign of curriculum to address unified early childhood license/teacher or standards based degree program
Completed a survey of faculty to identify potential course needs
Development of courses by inter-institutional faculty teams to address core program needs

Courses Being Developed with ECHO Resources

The following courses are designed to be Internet-based and available to students at all participating universities.

Working Course Title	Lead Partners in Development	Support Partners in Development
Intro/Overview of Early Childhood	McConnell/Washburn	Horn/KU Neises/Southwestern
Diversity	Hornieke/FHSU	Thompson/KU DeLuccie/KSU
Collaboration	Schweitzer/ACCK	DeLuccie/KSU Mitchell, WSU
Curriculum/Methods (Infant-Toddler)	Michell/WSU	Fees/KSU McConnell/Washburn
Curriculum/Methods (PreK)	Horn/KU	Vetter-Barkley/PSU Neisis/Southwestern
Social Competence/Social Development	Whitbeck/PSU	Fees/KSU, Horn/KU
Math/Science Methods	Neisis/Southwestern	DeLuccie/KSU Whitbeck/PSU
Literacy/Language Development	Crowe/KSU	Neisis/Southwestern Hornieke/FHSU
Creative Expressions	Thompson/KU	Hoover/KSU Hornieke/FHSU
Assessment of Young Children	Murray/KSU	York/PSU, Angie/ACCK McConnell/Washburn

Utility of ECHO Developed Courses

If a program does not have the necessary resources to offer a particular course – college/university could utilize collaborative offering
If a student(s) needs a particular course to fill their plan of study and their program does not offer the semester they need it
Faculty will have the opportunity to work and learn from each other and have the potential for new/additional information to be available for their in-house courses
Teachers in the field will have additional options for re-certification/licensure

Utility of ECHO Developed Courses

If a program does not have the necessary resources to offer a particular course – college/university could utilize collaborative offering
If a student(s) needs a particular course to fill their plan of study and their program does not offer the semester they need it
Faculty will have the opportunity to work and learn from each other and have the potential for new/additional information to be available for their in-house courses
Teachers in the field will have additional options for re-certification/licensure

ECHO Next Steps

Seek continued support of Deans in development of collaborative strategies to meet the state standards for Early Childhood Unified Licensure.

Seek continued support of Deans in development of collaborative strategies to meet the state standards for Early Childhood Unified Licensure.
Meet with appropriate administrators (Deans, Associate Deans, Department Chairs, Financial Officers, faculty) to identify institutional needs and constraints, relative to sharing courses inter-institutionally and begin to formalize an inter-institutional early childhood education alliance

Financial and Technical Support for ECHO has been provided by:

USDE - State Improvement Grant Supplement (#H323A990009-02B) awarded to KSDE with subsequent awards to Kansas Colleges/Universities
USDE - FIPSE grant awarded to KSU
Meeting facilitator supported by SRS and KACCRRA through a grant from Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation