MOOC: The Best Start in Life: Early Childhood Development for Sustainable Development

This SDG Academy massive open online course (MOOC) draws from research in neuroscience, psychology, economics, anthropology, and program implementation and evaluation in order to discuss early childhood development (ECD) and explore its role in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Completing the course will lead to understanding:

The ways in which children grow during this most rapid phase of development (physical, social, cognitive, emotional)
How the environment interacts with the body to build brain architecture and influence children’s growth and development
Milestones of child development: what is it that children know and can do at birth, by the second year, by preschool age?
How child development and its contexts vary across cultures and societies
How can programs and policies support children’s development?
How can they best be implemented to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals related to children and youth?
How can innovation push forward the field of ECD program development and how can you participate?

“The Best Start in Life” course is led by Professor Hirokazu Yoshikawa (New York University, Global TIES for Children), along with Center Director Jack Shonkoff, Catherine Tamis-LeMonda (New York University), Aisha Yousafzai (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), and UNICEF Senior Advisor and Chief of Early Childhood Development Pia Rebello Britto.