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Julie Sarama is a Distinguished University Professor, the Kennedy Endowed Chair in Innovative Learning Technologies, and co-Executive Director of the Marsico Institute for Early Learning and Literacy at the University of Denver. Her research focuses on young children's development of mathematical concepts and competencies, implementation and scale-up of educational reform, professional development models and their influence on student learning, and implementation and effects of software environments (including those she has created) in mathematics classrooms. Her studies have been published in more than 115 refereed articles, 10 books, 160 chapters, and over 100 additional publications.

Dr. Sarama has directed over 30 projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).[citations?]

Education and Career
Dr. Sarama has taught secondary mathematics and computer science, gifted math at the middle school level, preschool and kindergarten mathematics enrichment classes, and mathematics methods and content courses for elementary to secondary teachers. In addition, she was the Director of the Gifted Mathematics Program (GMP) at the University of Buffalo, SUNY. She designed and programmed over 50 published computer programs, including Building Blocks software and her version of Logo and Logo-based software activities (Turtle Math™, which was awarded Technology & Learning Software of the Year award, 1995, in the category "Math").

Dr. Sarama earned her Ph.D. at the University of Buffalo in Mathematics Education in 1995.

Early Math Education
Along with her colleague Douglas H. Clements, Dr. Sarama has affected early mathematics education in multiple ways, perhaps most profoundly and widely by developing Learning Trajectories for early mathematics education. Learning trajectories are descriptions of the paths of children’s thinking and learning in a specific mathematical domain, and a related, conjectured route through a set of instructional tasks. They have three interrelated components, (a) a goal, (c) a developmental progression of levels of thinking, and (c) instructional activities correlated to each level. To attain a certain mathematical competence in a given topic or domain (the goal), students learn each successive level (the developmental progression), aided by tasks (instructional activities) designed to build the mental actions-on-objects that enable thinking at each higher level. Learning trajectories have been shown in multiple rigorous studies to support children’s development in mathematics compared to other approaches. They also support equitable education for marginalized communities because they are effective and general and because at their core is a basic principle: Start with and build on children’s thinking and interests. An asset-based approach is also important to, and effective for, young children with disabilities, including those who are multilingual and racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse (Clements et al., 2021).

Building Blocks and TRIAD Scale Up: Learning Trajectories’ Impact
Together with Douglas H. Clements, Dr. Sarama developed the Building Blocks curriculum based on their Learning Trajectories approach to early mathematics education and their Curriculum Research Framework. They have evaluated this curriculum in randomized controlled trials and shown it to have a positive impact on children's learning. Multiple studies, including international work, has confirmed the effectiveness of the Building Blocks curriculum. This body of research has influenced evidence reviews and teaching guidance produced by the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK and the What Works Clearinghouse in the USA.

Following the success of the Building Blocks program, Clements and Sarama turned their attention to developing a model which became the pinnacle of their research efforts to help teacher and children across the country and the world. The Technology-enhanced, Research-based, Instruction, Assessment and Professional Development scale-up model extended the reach of Building Blocks. Sarama based the professional development on her earlier NSF-funded project. With Clements, she rigorously evaluated impact from the TRIAD intervention in preschool and as children progressed through the later years of school {TRIAD, \Sarama, 2008 #3324;Sarama, 2012 #4286;Sarama, 2012 #4002;Sarama, 2019 #8129}. Most surprising and important may be her findings that teachers increased the quality of their teaching with learning trajectories up to 6 years past the intervention  {Sarama, 2016 #8119; Sarama, 2021 #11334}.

Early STEM: Interdisciplinary Curriculum and Children with Disabilities
Although focusing primarily on math, Sarama has also developed valuable research-based resources in other domains, especially STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. As Principal Investigator on the NSF-funded “Early Childhood Education in the Context of Mathematics, Science, and Literacy,” she led an exemplary multidisciplinary team, including Drs. Kimberly Brenneman (science), Clements, Nell Duke (literacy and language), Mary Louise Hemmeter (social-emotional development), which developed an interdisciplinary preschool curriculum Connect4Learning, or C4L. {Sarama, 2012 #6755;Sarama, 2016 #7674, see an NSF video here}.

Sarama is also working with Clements and especially experts and advocate for equity and inclusion, Drs. Megan Vinh and Chih Ing Lim at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, on an OSEP-funded project to ensure Child With Disabilities fully engage in and learn STEM. The STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (STEMI2E2) Center is developing resources to increase the inclusion of young children with disabilities in early high-quality STEM learning experiences.

Honors and Awards

 * National Science Foundation Facilitator’s Choice award for video on the DU/ISU NSF-funded “Children’s Measurement” project
 * 2015 Innovator Award to Dr. Julie Sarama and Dr. Douglas H. Clements, given by Kaplan Early Learning Company
 * Technology & Learning Software of the Year award, 1995, in the category "Math," for Turtle Math, an educational software program designed, developed, and programmed by Douglas H. Clements & Julie Sarama {Clements, 1996 #5856}
 * Distinguished University Professor, University of Denver, 2018.

Personal Life
Sarama is married to fellow early mathematics researcher and University of Denver Distinguished University Professor Douglas H. Clements.