Research Projects

Bajillions is a digital platform (website and app) that integrates colorful, engaging mathematics games. The backbone of Bajillions is the Path, an integration of all learning trajectory levels. Each level on the Path has one or more games that both assess and provide fun, purposeful practice of key underpinning concepts and skills. The Bajillions system guides children along the Path by dynamically and automatically progressing them to an earlier level game, later level game, or more practice on a current level game, according to what they need. Meanwhile, teachers (or parents/guardians) receive individualized recommendations for in-person activities and other development resources. The Bajillions Project is leveraging research-validated content to promote the best of both worlds – face-to-face learning and individualized digital activities. Individuals can join the study through this eligibility survey. Schools can join the study by sending a Letter of Support to shannon.starkguss@du.edu. 

ULTIMATE is a new research project that will support teachers in deepening their understanding of how children learn mathematics and how to incorporate this understanding into their classrooms to help children develop math ideas and skills—joyfully. Over two decades, Drs. Clements and Sarama have built a professional development tool, called Learning and Teaching with Learning Trajectories, or [LT]2. The DU team will work with teachers, blending high quality in-person professional development and classroom-based coaching with teachers' use of the [LT]2 tool. The team will investigate the impacts of the intervention on teachers and students. 

Connect4Learning (C4L) is an interdisciplinary early childhood prekindergarten curriculum, which aims to synthesize research-based approaches in four domains of learning: literacy, mathematics, science, and social-emotional development. C4L uses an interdisciplinary approach to address growing concerns that most preschool instructional time is devoted to literacy at the expense of other content areas, particularly math and science. The aim of the EPIC four-year longitudinal project, funded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), is to evaluate the efficacy of the C4L curriculum when it is implemented as intended. We are partnering with 60 classrooms for this study, including 30 C4L classrooms and 30 “business as usual” classrooms. C4L teachers will receive regular professional development on the curriculum and will receive regular coaching to support curriculum implementation and fidelity. Data will include classroom observations in core domains, teacher surveys, coaching data, and child assessments in all core domains. 

The Marsico Institute is part of the national STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (STEMI2E2) Center in partnership with the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Center is funded by the Office of Special Education Programs, US Department of Education. The work of the Center is focused on developing and enhancing the knowledge base for engagement in STEM learning opportunities for young children with disabilities, implementing high-quality technical assistance and professional development to increase engagement for young children with disabilities in STEM opportunities, and engaging partners and stakeholders from diverse disciplines and industry in work to increase the inclusion of young children with disabilities in early high-quality STEM learning experiences. Learn more on their website linked here. 

Developed to study children’s development and learning across all important areas of early math, the Research-Based Early Math Assessment emerged from over two decades of research and development. All versions of the REMA are diagnostic assessments measuring children’s mathematical knowledge and skills along research-based developmental progressions (National Research Council, 2007; Sarama, 2009). The measures use an individual interview format with explicit protocol, coding, and scoring procedures.   

The COEMET (Classroom Observation of Early Math – Environment and Teaching) is a research-based and validated observational tool for observing the quantity and quality of the math environment and teaching in preschool through 2nd grade classrooms. This project seeks to digitize the app as a foundation for adding coaching tools to support the development of early math educators. This project is supported by the Tools Competition.

Learning and Teaching with Learning Trajectories [LT]2 is a web-based tool for early childhood educators to learn about how children think and learn about mathematics and how to teach mathematics to young children (birth to age 8). The website allows teachers to access information about children's development of math, view short video clips of classroom instruction, and explore a variety of resources including research-based instructional activities and teaching strategies.  Funding from the Heising-Simons Foundation supported the initial development of the website, the addition of important standards, assessments, and infant/toddler content to the site. Partnerships support the addition of video voiceovers and Spanish translations. Work to continuously add new research-based activities and high-quality teaching examples continues with the support of generous donors. Contribute here. 

The Marsico Institute participated as a member of the Development and Research in Early Mathematics Education (DREME) Network, funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation. The goal of DREME is to advance the field of early mathematics research in the U.S., significantly improving how early math is taught and learned.  The Math+ project focuses on the relationship between math ability and executive function (EF) - interdependent skills of cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control. The Marsico Institute’s DREME team has developed and is testing a series of activities to determine whether and how they shape children’s mathematical and EF behaviors. The project aims to systematically evaluate whether the activities contribute to the development of EF and mathematics, and whether they improve differently depending on children’s initial abilities. This work includes the development and testing of an EF observational coding system. The knowledge gained will be helpful in guiding teachers as they prioritize teaching practices and effectively promote the simultaneous development of children’s mathematical thinking and executive functions. For more information, see the project webpage linked here. 

Within the Development and Research in Early Mathematics Education (DREME) Network, the Preschool-Elementary Coherence (COHERE) project is investigating the relationship between district-wide and within-school efforts to create policies and practices that improve the quality and continuity of math education from PreK through the early primary grades. The COHERE study is designed to investigate how these changes are experienced by teachers and students in classrooms and how that, in turn, influences students’ understanding of the nature of mathematics and mathematical proficiency. For more information, see the project webpage linked here. 

The learning trajectories of early math, as conceptualized by Drs. Sarama and Clements have been incorporated in various educational standards, assessments, curricula, and reports such as those developed by the National Research Council. While recognized widely for the extensive research and development supporting learning trajectories, this project focused on evaluating and validating them. The Evaluating the Efficacy of Learning Trajectories in Early Mathematics was a national research project funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) that evaluated the usefulness of learning trajectories for improving student achievement in early math. The Marsico Institute investigated the extent to which the learning trajectories approach was effective in comparison to other approaches and in what ways learning trajectories could be used to best support young children's learning.  

Marsico Institute was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to combine our work on the Building Blocks math curriculum with colleagues in other core fields to develop and pilot test an interdisciplinary preschool curriculum: Connect4Learning. The Connect4Learning curriculum connects four core domains of learning: math, science, literacy, and social-emotional learning. This grant was a collaboration of experts in math (Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama – co-Executive Directors of the Marsico Institute), science (Kimberly Brenneman), literacy/language (Nell Duke) and social-emotional development (M. L. Hemmeter). 

How do children think and learn about geometric measurement—length, area, and volume? Funded by the National Science Foundation, this research and development project focused on the learning and teaching of measurement in early and elementary education. Conducted in collaboration with Jeffrey Barrett and Craig Cullen from Illinois State University, Marsico Institute developed and tested research-based developmental progressions—descriptions of the levels of thinking children move through as they learn— in three areas of measurement across a seven-year span. These developmental progressions including instructional activities and teaching strategies can be found on the Learning Trajectories website. 

Increased interest in early mathematics has led to an increased need for assessments. This increased need for assessment calls for better assessments, which are diagnostic, providing researchers and teachers with data about what children know and can do and what they still need to learn. This needs to be done efficiently, so that assessments take up too much valuable school time. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the CREMAT Project has enabled Drs. Sarama and Clements, along with colleagues. Curtis Tatsuoka and Kikumi Tatsuoka, to create and test a new early mathematics assessment. This assessment uses innovative statistical and computer technology to give teachers more useful and detailed information about children's knowledge of mathematics. These assessments are fast but fully informative and help teachers know their students and support their use of the powerful teaching strategy of 'formative assessment' or individualizing learning. 

Tools for Early Assessment in Math (TEAM) is an assessment screening tool for students in grades pre-k to 2. This tool can be used to determine where a student is proficient in math skills by providing meaningful diagnostic reports and by prescribing additional activities to accelerate their learning of these skills based on the reported data. (Clements, Sarama, & Wolfe, 2011) 

“Scaling Up TRIAD: Teaching Early Mathematics for Understanding with Trajectories and Technologies" is the third of a sequence of rigorous evaluations of a model of scaling up successful interventions for early math. This project focused on math achievement in young children through high-quality implementation of the "Building Blocks" math curriculum, with all aspects of the curriculum–content, pedagogy, technology, and assessments–based on a common core of learning trajectories. A particularly challenging educational and theoretical issue is scaling up educational programs across a multitude of diverse populations and contexts in the early childhood system in the U.S., while avoiding the dilution and pollution that usually plagues such efforts to achieve broad success. With previous funding, Drs. Sarama and Clements created a research-based model to meet this challenge in the area of mathematics, with the intent to generalize the model to other subject areas and age groups. Results of the study indicated high levels of fidelity of implementation resulting in consistently higher scores in the intervention classes on the observation instrument and statistically significant and substantially greater gains in children's mathematics, again with substantial effect sizes in preschool and continuing into kindergarten and 1st grade. These relationships were stronger in the "Follow Through" condition in which Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers also received professional development.

The Early Childhood Leadership Commission (ECLC) led the project to update the Early Childhood Colorado Framework with the help of the Framework Steering Committee. The ECLC was committed to engaging stakeholders with cross domain experience and expertise to ensure the second iteration of the Framework remained a resource and guide for communities and partners across the state. This public-private partnership reflects the ECLC's dedication to advancing all components of the Framework: early learning; family support and parent education; and social, emotional, physical, and mental health. 

The Marsico Institute for Early Learning led the research and stakeholder survey component of the project. Marsico worked collaboratively with Early Milestones Colorado and Civic Canopy on all aspects of the project. For more information visit the Colorado Office of Early Childhood. 

Mile High Early Learning's Babies Ready for College (BRFC) program was created out of the need to encourage children’s academic success by equipping parents and family, friend, and neighborhood caregivers with the knowledge and expertise to prepare their children academically and socially before they enter preschool. BRFC's goal is to begin planting the seed of expectation for higher education in families living in chronically under-resourced communities, which improves children's long-term educational outcomes through parent and caregiver education and the development of civic leadership among parents and caregivers. The Marsico Institute for Early Learning was commissioned by and partnered with Mile High Early Learning for over three years to conduct annual evaluations of the BRFC Program.