Spring 2027

Methods, Materials and Activities in Early Childhood Education

Develops strategies for teaching young children, covering development-culture relationships, play, teacher roles, observation, assessment, developmentally appropriate practices, and curriculum unit construction.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 JULI BakKate MaccrimmonKristen Witzling +2 more

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.87 GPA, 95.7% A/AB (n=116 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.81 GPA, 87.1% A/AB (n=31 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.90 GPA, 97.2% A/AB (n=107 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Become familiar with a variety of early childhood methods and materials and their use with children in a variety of learning contexts.

  • Plan instruction for children ages 3-8 years using strategies that responds to the ways young children learn, addresses an array of subject matter knowledge, and that promotes culturally responsive experience.

  • Learn teaching strategies for planning an equitable student-centered curriculum.

  • Identify the equity and developmental theories underlying these methods and materials

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Declared in Elementary Education BSE, Elementary Education and Special Education BSE, Special Education BSE or graduate/professional standing

    • Declared in Elementary Education BSE
    • Elementary Education and Special Education BSE
    • Special Education BSE
    • graduate/professional standing
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CURRIC 550 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • Declared in Elementary Education BSE
    • Elementary Education and Special Education BSE
    • Special Education BSE
    • graduate/professional standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No course-specific feedback yet.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1600
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 200
DIS 308Classroom Instruction0 / 200

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.87 GPA, 95.7% A/AB (n=116 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.81 GPA, 87.1% A/AB (n=31 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.90 GPA, 97.2% A/AB (n=107 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Development and culture in early childhood.
  • Play as a component of learning.
  • Teachers' roles in facilitating learning.
  • Observation and assessment functions.
  • Developmentally appropriate practices.
  • Engaging children in self-directed learning.
  • Curriculum unit construction.

Skills

  • Planning instruction for children ages 3-8 using developmentally responsive strategies.
  • Applying observation and assessment functions in early childhood settings.
  • Constructing curriculum units for early childhood education.
  • Planning equitable, student-centered curricula.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
CURRIC 550 · Spring 2027

Methods, Materials and Activities in Early Childhood Education

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:272:004933",
    "course_id": "CURRIC 550",
    "course_uid": "course_6a685df4c34170ba1396dd37",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "004933",
    "source_subject_id": "272",
    "title": "Methods, Materials and Activities in Early Childhood Education",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Not Applicable"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "0fecf17560974d4cd9bee0140cf9d31a6f79eca908f5c32ceb92cd9d0b41bea0",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}