Choosing the right CTE curriculum can make all the difference when preparing your students for success as child development associates. After all, you must ensure your students receive updated information to prepare them for working with children and their families.
Two providers of child development associate foundations curriculum you may have heard of are the Texas Tech University Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences (TTU CCFCS) and iCEV. While both offer materials for teaching your child development students, one or the other could be the better choice for your program.
In this article, you'll discover the differences between TTU CCFCS and iCEV for a Child Development Associate Foundations course. Specifically, we'll look at the following:
- What Curriculum Resources Do TTU CCFCS and iCEV Offer?
- What Is the Instructional Focus of TTU CCFCS and iCEV?
- What Instructional Materials Are Included?
- Which Child Development Associate Foundations Curriculum Resources are Right for You?
After reading, you'll better understand the differences between the materials offered by TTU CCFCS and iCEV so you can choose the best resource for your class.
What Curriculum Resources Do TTU CCFCS and iCEV Offer?
TTU CCFCS and iCEV both provide resources for career and technical education (CTE) classrooms. You can use these resources to teach Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) classes, including Child Development Associate Foundations.
However, the types of resources these two providers offer are very different. In this section, you’ll find more information about the individual curriculum packages offered by TTU CCFCS and iCEV.
What Are the TTU CCFCS Curriculum Resources?
The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences at Texas Tech University produces FCS curriculum resources for teachers and students across the United States. Currently, the Center offers curriculum materials for three dozen courses in FCS and related CTE subjects.
For Child Development Associate Foundations, the Center provides a selection of projects and activities to enhance learners’ understanding of educational concepts. The resources are designed as a supplemental instructional package to improve instructors’ flexibility in teaching a complete Foundations course.
When used alongside additional materials from another curriculum provider, the TTU CCFCS resources can help improve each student’s experience in a child development class.
What Is the iCEV Child Development Associate Foundations Course?
iCEV is a dedicated provider of CTE curriculum for teachers and students in 11 different pathways, including Family and Consumer Sciences.
With iCEV, teachers receive access to a complete Child Development Associate Foundations course, including pre-built lesson plans, interactive activities, and formative and summative assessments. They’ll also gain access to several other courses in the FCS area, including Child Guidance and Human Development, to provide a cohesive learning experience for students.
In addition, teachers receive access to a robust learning management system (LMS) to keep track of student activity and report on their progress.
What Is the Instructional Focus of TTU CCFCS and iCEV?
The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences and iCEV both design their curriculum to meet the needs of teachers covering a Child Development Associate Foundations course. But the particular ways they serve these teachers are very different.
In this section, you’ll discover more about the instructional focuses of each curriculum provider.
What Is the Instructional Focus of TTU CCFCS?
Texas Tech’s Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences aims to support teachers in their classroom roles. They achieve this goal by bringing together a selection of supplemental instructional resources instructors can use to customize, expand, and improve their existing curriculum to create a better student learning experience.
The Center’s objective for its Child Development Associate Foundations curriculum is no different: each resource is designed to give teachers additional options to enhance the learning experience. These materials can come from various educational sources, similar to how a teacher might pull from different resources when assembling a curriculum from scratch.
Overall, Texas Tech University’s resources are intended to help teachers better meet their instructional standards. Ideally, they’ll improve learners’ ability to master the knowledge and skills necessary for success as child development associates.
What Is the Instructional Focus of iCEV?
The iCEV Child Development Associate Foundations course is designed to provide a blended learning experience for teachers and students. While iCEV includes written components, learners receive information through multimedia presentations, video and visual instruction, and interactive projects and activities. This allows students to master content through varied instructional methodologies that prepare them for future success.
The course is presented through iCEV’s digital platform, which tracks student progress and integrates with most learning management systems. Teachers receive access to iCEV’s extensive library of premade lesson plans and instructional resources for this and every course in the Family and Consumer Sciences pathway.
When students learn through multiple iCEV courses, educators can provide cohesive instruction that builds upon knowledge and skills to ensure students are prepared for careers as child development associates.
iCEV is designed to give students an interactive environment that blends different instructional opportunities for an ideal learning experience.
What Instructional Materials Are Included?
Despite both covering material that will help learners become child development associates, the specific instructional resources available from TTU CCFCS and iCEV are quite different from each other.
Below, you’ll discover more about these specific differences and how to use the materials to teach a Child Development Associate Foundations course.
What Instructional Materials Does TTU CCFCS Include?
The Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences includes a limited range of materials with its Child Development Associate Foundations package.
Some of these materials are aids to in-classroom instruction, such as slide presentations and instructional strategies. Others serve as supplemental projects and activities to enhance learning and come with included grading rubrics. The materials are presented in Blackboard for ease of use but aren’t available for other learning management systems (LMS).
In addition, individual resources align with FCCLA projects. This could be particularly helpful for students involved in this career and technical student organization (CTSO) and their advisors, who can look to these projects to prepare students for competitive events.
However, it’s important to note that many resources are only available from external providers through hyperlinks. You might lose access to some of your curriculum materials if links or websites change.
Overall, Texas Tech’s materials are a supplemental resource package to expand an existing curriculum.
What Instructional Materials Does iCEV Include?
iCEV offers robust materials to engage students with a blended learning approach. The materials are intended to teach an entire Child Development Associate Foundations course and include everything a teacher needs to teach the class, from multimedia lessons to activities to assessments.
iCEV’s curriculum is designed to prepare students comprehensively for their future careers. The early learning observations help students explore aspects of work as child development associates in more detail.
Along the way, included projects and activities help connect course content directly to situations students are likely to face when working with children and their families. The course concludes with a summative capstone project that serves as a portfolio of each learner’s work.
All of the materials are presented in the iCEV’s curriculum system, which integrates with many learning management systems (LMS) and single sign-on (SSO) solutions for ease of use.
Overall, iCEV’s Child Development Associate Foundations course is a complete class preparing students directly for the CDA certification and field work.
Which Child Development Associate Foundations Curriculum is Best for My Students?
As a Child Development Associate Foundations class instructor, you’re responsible for finding a curriculum that successfully prepares students for their careers. To achieve this, you need up-to-date materials that satisfy your standards. You also need a complete curriculum that engages students while covering every topic they need to learn.
If you already have a textbook or other curriculum that you enjoy and meets your requirements, the resources available from Texas Tech University’s Curriculum Center for Family and Consumer Sciences could be exactly what you need. They offer a good selection of supplemental materials to make your existing lessons even better.
But if you want a complete, continually updated digital curriculum to teach your entire Child Development Associate Foundations course, iCEV is the better choice. You’ll receive everything you need to meet your standards in one package, plus gain access to the entire Family and Consumer Sciences course library with a single subscription.
Could iCEV be the right fit for your students? Sign up for a free trial to receive full access to the curriculum and determine if it suits your program.
