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Douglas Clements
Professor, Department of Learning and Instruction

Christopher Baldy Hall, Room 572
Office: (716) 645-2455 ext. 1124
Fax: (716) 645-3161
email: clements@buffalo.edu

Doug Clements

Educational Background

  • Ph.D., Elementary Education, State University of New York at Buffalo (1983)


Professional and Research Interests

  • Mathematics Education
  • Computers in Education
  • Early Childhood Education

    Douglas H. Clements, recipient of UB's 2002 "Sustained Achievement" award, has published over 90 refereed research studies, 5 books, 50 chapters, and 200 additional publications in the areas of mathematics education, educational technology, and early childhood education. In a current National Science Foundation (NSF) project, "Building Blocks-Foundations for Mathematical Thinking, Pre- Kindergarten to Grade 2: Research-based Materials Development," he and Julie Sarama are developing curricula that include software and print materials for early childhood mathematics. The first are a set of preschool curricula published by SRA. See the link towards the end of this page for more information.

    Clements has three additional current NSF projects. He directed a "Conference on Standards for Preschool and Kindergarten Mathematics Education," an historic national meeting that lead to his chairing and co-authoring the joint position statement of the National Association of the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) on early mathematics education (see www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements/ position_statement1.htm and www.nctm.org/about/position_statements/ earlychildhood_statement.htm). He cooperated with Principal Investigator Sarama on "Planning for Professional Development in Pre-School Mathematics: Meeting the Challenge of Standards 2000." See the link towards the end of this page for more information on these projects as well. With Julie Sarama, he co-directing two funded projects based on the Building Blocks curriculum materials. The first is a Dept. of Education (DOE) Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research (PCER) grant, A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of a Pre-Kindergarten Mathematics Curriculum on Low-Income Children's Mathematical Knowledge. This project is examining immediate and longitudinal effects of preschool curricula with colleagues from the University of California-Berkeley. The second is funded by the NSF, as part of the Interagency Educational Research Initiative (IERI, a combination of NSF, DOE, and NIH). Here the emphasis is on scaling up--working with greater numbers of teachers. Both grants, the PCER and the IERI, are directly concerned with underrepresented children, especially in urban areas. Finally, he is cooperating with several colleagues on the NSF-funded project, REC-9903409, "Technology- Enhanced Learning of Geometry in Elementary Schools."

    Before these projects, Clements completed two NSF projects with colleagues. The first developed a K-5 mathematics curriculum, "Investigations in Number, Data, and Space" (published by Dale Seymour Publications). In that context, he developed several constructivist- oriented software packages (with he and colleague Julie Sarama performing all the design, programming, and implementation), including their own version of Logo and Logo-based software activities to complement the curriculum (this software environment was also published as a stand-alone product, including activities that integrate Logo into the geometry curriculum, under the name Turtle Math, which was awarded Technology & Learning's Software of the Year award, 1995, in the category "Math"), a computer-based manipulative software environment (Shapes) and several others (Trips, Tumbling Tetrominoes). Before that, he co- developed an elementary geometry curriculum based on Logo with Michael Battista, "Logo Geometry," published by Silver Burdett & Ginn. In the second, research, NSF project with Battista, he conducted research on the teaching and learning of geometry with and without computers, resulting in a Journal for Research in Mathematics Education Monograph.

    Clements is one of the authors of the recent McGraw- Hill mathematics textbook series. He is active in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), is editor and author of the NCTM Addenda (to the Standards) materials and is one of the authors of NCTM's recent Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000). He was chair of the Editorial Panel of NCTM's research journal, the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.


Research and Publications

Click to visit Building Blocks.




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