New York State requires 30 hours of liberal arts preparation (which can be completed at the undergraduate and/or graduate level) for initial certification in early childhood education. All teacher candidates must fulfill the following requirements at a grade of C or better in order to graduate from the program and be recommended for certification:
| Content area | Required number of courses | Examples |
| Artistic Expression | 1 | art, dance, music, theater |
| Communication | 1 | communication, English, written or literary analysis, composition |
| Information Retrieval | 1 | library studies, research, computer literacy, educational technology |
| Humanities | 1 | literature, religion, philosophy, cultural anthropology |
| Written analysis and Expression | 1 | English composition, creative writing, introduction to writing |
| Concepts in historical & social sciences | 2 | history, geography, anthropology, economics, sociology, political science |
| Scientific processes | 2 | Astronomy Biology: cell biology and biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, genetics and evolution, biological diversity, human biology, zoology, cell nutrition Chemistry: matter and atomic structure, energy, chemical bonds and molecular structure, chemical reactions, quantitative relationships Earth Science: space systems, atmospheric systems, geological systems, water systems Physics |
| Mathematical processes | 2 | Mathematical reasoning, quantitative methods, number theory and concepts, algebra, analytic geometry, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, data analysis, probability, discrete mathematics |
| Language other than English | 2 | Documentation of three years of high school foreign language satisfies this requirement. If an applicant provides documentation of graduation from a high school and/or college in which coursework is conducted in a language other than English, the requirement is fulfilled. |
Last Updated: 11/01/2019 10:08