Environment

Each group of children is supervised by a staff of professionally trained teachers including a teacher, an associate teacher, and University students. The adult/child ratio ranges between 1:3 and 1:8 (depending on the ages of the children) for each of the classrooms.

The Teaching Teams see each child as a unique individual whose potential blossoms best in a child-centered and developmentally sound learning environment. Our focus is on the whole child. The Program’s environment acknowledges and supports each child's emerging identity. The program fosters cognitive, emotional, social and physical growth in an atmosphere providing all children the dignity, respect and nurturing they deserve.

In addition we are able to provide multi-age classroom groups which foster the acceptance of differing abilities and ages. The multi-age classroom allows children to experience leadership and nurturing skills and provides children with a real-life community where they can grow together at their own rate and ability level. Often children are able to remain in the same classroom with the same teachers from year to year to create a sense of security and consistency.

The Towsley Children’s House serves as a resource for research and training for the University of Michigan community, and has been a vibrant setting for research, observation, and training projects. Since the program’s inception, roughly 20 research projects have been conducted each year. These projects have spanned a range of topics from children's cognitive development to preschool teaching methods and have included individuals from a spectrum of disciplines including medicine, public health, nursing, psychology, linguistics, social work, music, and education. These projects have resulted in over 50 research publications in top-tiered journals with publishers such as Oxford University Press, MIT Press, Child Development, Cognition and Culture, and Journal of Child Language. Results from research is disseminated throughout the U.S. and internationally through presentations at a variety of professional societies including the Society for Research in Child Development, Japanese Educational Psychology Association, International Society for Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, and International Society for Research on Aggression.