Department Profile

The Department of Early Childhood Education at the University of Thessaly aims at providing state-of-the-art teacher education, incorporating contemporary educational research findings as well as findings from related disciplines. In accordance with the department’s mission to promote innovative teaching research in the area of early childhood education – a particularly critical period of human development – we constantly endeavour to incorporate the most relevant, innovative and creative approaches that enable our students to develop an in-depth understanding of the workings of human development and learning processes, offering a solid basis for further study and research. For this reason, the department employs a wealth of teaching and learning strategies including lectures, seminars, workshop-based modules, and offers opportunities to experience teaching in a variety of settings. Particular attention is paid upon giving students the opportunity of direct teaching practice that enables them to critically translate theory into practice and vice versa. This allows them to apply and integrate aspects of early childhood teaching and learning based on developmentally appropriate theories and practices. This mandatory practice-based experience forms a core dimension of our whole programme of study, and is also directly related to further teaching opportunities which operate in the context of an EU-funded placement programme. During the 4 years of study, students are expected to pass 18 mandatory, 20 elective, 2 foreign-language courses, 2 academic writing courses and 2 seminars. Students have the opportunity to undertake a graduation research project that is equivalent to 2 elective courses.