About CGI PDC
Our Mission
Our Vision
Every child willing and prepared to use mathematics to solve the world’s problems.
Our Mission
Empowering teachers as they guide children toward becoming capable, curious, and fearless mathematicians.
Our Beliefs
- Math should make sense.
- All children are able to learn math at high levels.
- Children’s thinking, not curriculum, should guide instruction.
- Conceptual understanding must precede procedural fluency.
- Children are able to solve challenging problems without first being shown what to do.
- Teachers are our most important resource and we must invest in them accordingly.
- School administrators must understand the importance of effective math instruction and be actively involved with this work
Today’s schools need to prepare students for a world that will require them to apply mathematics to novel, complex problems. It is no longer sufficient to focus exclusively on teaching procedures and facts--students must understand and engage with mathematical concepts deeply. CGI prepares teachers, the most important factor in our children's education, to do this important work.
In American classrooms, often the importance of children learning procedures and facts overshadowed them understanding the underlying concepts or being able to apply mathematics to new and unfamiliar situations. This has resulted in low achievement among too many students, as well as a lack of engagement and interest in the subject, even among our highest achieving students. This model is particularly problematic in today’s knowledge economy where more careers than ever will demand mathematical competence and confidence, at a time when the workforce will need to create the equations that will solve the world’s problems, not just solve the equations that appear on a test or worksheet.
Research supports that when CGI is properly implemented, children in CGI classrooms achieve at significantly higher levels than their peers in non-CGI classrooms, including children from traditionally underachieving groups. In CGI classrooms, students develop procedural fluency and knowledge of facts through problem-solving which also allows them to develop a rich understanding of mathematical concepts.
The most important factor in the education of children is the quality of their teachers. Teachers need the opportunity to meaningfully engage with the research on how children think and learn. A curriculum, district pacing guide, and even state standards may come and go, but a CGI teacher can and will teach mathematics effectively in any environment independent of the resources provided. CGI is about investing in our teachers so they may best support our students.
Our Story
San Diego State University is fortunate that three current and former faculty members, Rebecca Ambrose, Vicki Jacobs, and Randy Philipp, were involved with the original CGI research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as graduate students. Once here in San Diego, they initiated both formal and informal collaborations with local teachers, sharing their expertise and their deep curiosity about children’s mathematical thinking. Thanks to them, San Diego is home to a strong community of CGI teachers and trainers who continue to partner with the university in hopes of bringing the highest quality mathematics instruction to the children of our community. The CGI Professional Development Collaboration is an extension of this work.
CGI Overview
Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is rooted in the idea that children’s thinking, rather than a curriculum, should inform instructional decisions. Research demonstrates that this environment results in higher achievement for all students. The CGI Professional Development Collaborative at San Diego State University is excited to offer CGI courses to the teachers of our community.
Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) (Carpenter, Fennema, Franke, Levi, & Empson, 1999) is a research base and professional development program in which children’s thinking, rather than a curriculum, provides the basis for instructional decisions. Students come to school with rich informal mathematical thinking and innate problem-solving abilities. Teachers learn how mathematical thinking develops and start with what children already know, building upon that knowledge and guiding children toward deeper, more sophisticated levels of understanding.
In a CGI classroom, teachers pose novel problems with real world contexts and allow their students to solve them in using strategies that they invent themselves and that make sense to them. The focus is on developing conceptual understanding initially as a solid foundation for the later development of abstract and efficient thinking. This differs from the traditional approach of teaching facts and procedures first. Students are encouraged and given the time to persevere with the support of their teacher and peers when problems are difficult. Errors are valued as opportunities for learning. Children share their solutions and engage in each other’s thinking as the teacher listens carefully and responds thoughtfully to their ideas.
CGI research consistently demonstrates that teachers who know the details of their students’ mathematical thinking have higher achieving students. The CGI Professional Development Collaborative at San Diego State University offers CGI courses to the teachers of our community.
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