New angle on early geometry

NEA Today, Feb 1999

Innovator:

Douglas Clements Job:

Professor of mathematics and computer education, State University of New York at Buffalo Bright Idea:

Don't wait till high school to teach angles and trapezoids. Clements believes that students can learn more geometry at an earlier age.

"Kids can do mathematical things from their first year-way earlier than we thought," says Clements. "To do active teaching, it's essential to know how kids think, what strategies they use."

The National Science Foundation tapped Clements to find out just that, awarding him a grant to co-develop a K-5 math curriculum, Investigations in Number, Data, and Space (Dale Seymour Publications, $35), while researching the teaching and learning of geometry in grades K-5.

"In the past," notes Clements, "elementary teachers would do a cute geometry activity, and all the kids learned was to name shapes. With these two projects, we tried to develop activities that would enrich what geometry can be at grades K-5 and move children through levels of geometric thinking." At the first level-visual-children can identify shapes. At the second level-descriptive-analytic-they can explain why a certain shape is, say, a rectangle. At the third level-abstract -students can make inferences and see the properties have implications.

Fourth/fifth grade activities to enhance this kind of learning include making a toy from interconnected tubes and then drawing a diagram of the toy or predicting how many cubes it will take to fill a box.

Clements has co-developed Turtle Math (LCSI, $69), computer software that complements this curriculum. "It's exciting to see kids arguing about shapes," says Clements. "When the computers are put away, they consolidate their knowledge and present different ideas. This is the precursor to building up proofs and theorems." Impact:

Textbook publishers and state education departments are modifying math guidelines based on Clements's work. For More:

Contact Clements at SUNY at Buffalo, Department of Learning and Instruction, 505 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, 716/645-3158, or send E-mail to Clements@acsu.buffalo.edu.