Goals

The ultimate aim of the Degree in Preschool Education is to ensure students gain the aptitudes to exercise the teaching profession at this level. To do so, the course has set the following goals:

• To enable graduates to teach at this level in a changing society and ensure they acquire the professional abilities necessary for education in heterogeneous educational contexts.
• To guarantee that graduates have the knowledge necessary to treat didactics from a specific, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective, both in the initial stage of training and throughout their professional lives.
• To train future graduates to generate the synergies that favour continuity between educational cycles and stages in schools and other socio-educational, family and community contexts.
• To encourage professional practices based on fundamental rights, equal opportunities between men and women, universal access for the disabled, values inherent to peaceful and democratic cultures, and on understanding culture and hard work as values.
• To promote professional abilities specially designed to the adaptation, demands and educational conditions of the rural world.

Competences

List of specific competences related to knowledge and skills expected of graduates.

Pursuant to Ministerial Order 3857/2007, of 27 December, which establishes the requirements for the verification of official university degrees that lead to the practice of preschool teaching, the following competences underlie the structure of the Degree:

• Being familiar with the curricular areas of primary education, the interdisciplinary relationship between them, the assessment criteria and the body of didactic knowledge required for teaching and learning processes.
• Designing, planning and evaluating teaching and learning processes, both individually and in collaboration with other teachers and staff at a school.
• Approaching learning situations in multicultural and multilingual contexts efficiently. Encouraging the reading and critical commentary of texts from diverse scientific and cultural domains that form part of the school curriculum.
• Designing and regulating learning spaces in diverse contexts that respect gender equality and human rights, and that satisfy the values of citizen training.
• Encouraging coexistence inside and outside the classroom, resolving disciplinary problems and contributing to peaceful conflict resolution. Stimulating and appreciating effort, perseverance and personal discipline in students.
• Knowing about the organisation of preschool environments and the range of actions that enable them to function. Performing tutorial tasks and giving guidance to students and their families, in accordance with the particular educational needs of each student. Understanding that the practice of the teaching profession must continue to be perfected and adapted to scientific, pedagogical and social changes throughout one’s career.
• Collaborating with different sectors in the educational community and in society at large. Playing an active role in the educational dimension of teaching and encouraging democratic education opportunities for all citizens.
• Maintaining a critical and autonomous relationship with respect to knowledge, values, and public and private social institutions.
• Valuing individual and collective responsibility in achieving a sustainable future.
• Reflecting on classroom practices to innovate and improve teaching. Acquiring habits and skills for cooperative and autonomous learning and promoting these values in students.
• Being familiar with and applying information and communication technologies in the classroom. Selectively distinguishing audiovisual information that contributes to learning, civic formation and cultural richness.
• Understanding the function, possibilities and limitations of education in modern society and the fundamental issues that affect preschool teaching environments and their staff. Being familiar with quality improvement models applicable to schools. Encouraging continuity between educational cycles and other socio-educational, family and community contexts, with special emphasis placed on the characteristics of rural settings.

List of general competences related to teamwork, communication, problem solving, etc.

• Ability to communicate orally and in writing.
• Command of a foreign language.
• Command of information and communication technologies.
• Respect for fundamental rights of equality between men and women, the promotion of human rights and the values inherent to peaceful and democratic cultures.
• Ability to communicate with education stakeholders effectively in different educational settings: the classroom, the teaching team and with the educational community.
• Ability to reflect on, act on and resolve problematic situations in educational settings. Ability to detect situations that require specific intervention by oneself or by other experts. Leadership skills.
• Ability to manage information suited to the functions inherent to the profession. Ability to learn about and understand changing social realities in the context of education. Ability to recognise changes in society and knowing how to evolve alongside them. Ability to change.
• Ability to take on the commitment of personal and professional development in the community.
• Ability to adapt learning proposals to bring about significant cultural changes.