Accelerated Certificate Program - Early Childhood Education

Keystone College provides a high-quality, streamlined accelerated certification program, which builds on student backgrounds and strengths and provides a clear route for timely completion. Sequenced advising for the Early Childhood Education accelerated program delineates pre-requisites for admission to the program and enumerates each venue in which the courses are offered.

The process takes prospective students through a thorough intake mechanism that is adaptable and responsive to the candidate’s needs. Keystone is responsive to a candidate’s previous educational qualifications and work experiences. The College provides opportunities for candidates to engage in credit by assessment and prior learning assessment, which maximize vehicles to promote a candidate’s ease of navigating the program.

Obtaining the Certification

Students with a Bachelor’s Degree interested in obtaining a certification in Early Childhood at Keystone College must meet the Division of Education entry requirements and participate in an interview with a member of the education faculty prior to beginning coursework. A minimum of 30 credits in the discipline at the College is needed in order to be recommended to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for certification. If any of the required courses have been accepted by Keystone College as transfer credits, a list of acceptable alternative courses will be provided to the student in order to ensure completion of the 30 credit minimum.

Field Placements

Field placements for post-baccalaureate students will be customized to ensure non-duplicative or repetitive assignments; rather, field work will target gaps in experiences to promote and refine content expertise in the discipline of early childhood and early childhood/special education. A minimum of 150 hours of classroom field observation is required prior to the student teaching experience. Field experiences are integrated into coursework in each semester and are generally scheduled Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.