Approach to Teaching Math Starts with Children's Knowledge

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – About 400 elementary teachers from around the nation will go to Little Rock next week to learn and share information about Cognitively Guided Instruction, a professional development program that focuses on K-3 mathematics and has attracted widespread interest in the state of Arkansas.

Tom Smith, dean of the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, will give opening remarks at the start of the conference June 22.

Cognitively Guided Instruction increases teachers' understanding of the knowledge that students bring to the math learning process and how they connect that knowledge with formal concepts and operations, said Laura Kent, co-chair of the conference and University of Arkansas associate professor of secondary education. Kent specializes in mathematics instruction in the department of curriculum and instruction.

"This is a unique opportunity for kindergarten through sixth-grade teachers," Kent said. "CGI is popular in Arkansas, and this conference will give these teachers the opportunity to learn from the pioneers of the program. Their students, ultimately, will be the ones to benefit. Another benefit of CGI for the state of Arkansas is the close alignment of mathematics content of the workshops and the K-2 Common Core Mathematics Standards. Many teachers who have been through several years of CGI professional development are out in front in terms of implementing the Common Core standards for mathematics."

Co-chairing the conference with Kent are elementary math specialists Linda Jaslow of the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative, Pam Allen of the Wilbur D. Mills Education Service Cooperative and Jody Pearce of the DeQueen/Mena Education Service Cooperative.

Kent, who joined the faculty of the College of Education and Health Professions in 2006, has received two grants from the Arkansas Department of Education to study the implementation and expansion of Cognitively Guided Instruction in Arkansas. She has worked with other CGI researchers to expand principles of the professional development to mathematics instruction in the upper elementary, middle level and junior high grades.

While earning her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kent studied under Thomas P. Carpenter, who co-founded the professional development program with colleagues at Wisconsin. Carpenter is emeritus professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and served as director of the National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science. He will be one of the featured keynote speakers at the conference.

According to Carpenter, Cognitively Guided Instruction is an elementary-level mathematics professional development program based on an integrated program of research on four components: the development of students' mathematical thinking, instruction that influences that development, teachers' knowledge and beliefs that influence their instructional practice, and the way that teachers' knowledge, beliefs and practices are influenced by their understanding of students' mathematical thinking.

At the core of this approach to teaching math is the practice of listening to children's mathematical thinking and using it as a basis for instruction. There is no one way to implement the approach, according to Carpenter, and teachers' professional judgment is central to making decisions on how to use information about children's thinking.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, the Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education in the department of curriculum and instruction and faculty affiliate in the department of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will give the opening keynote address. She is the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association, former editor of American Educational Research Journal, and a critically acclaimed author of such books as The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children and Crossing Over Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms. The other keynote speakers include Megan Franke of the University of California-Los Angeles, Vicki Jacobs and Randolph Philipp of San Diego State University, Susan Empson of the University of Texas at Austin and Linda Levi of Teachers Development Group. All of these presenters were part of the original research and development teams for CGI and have continued to research the impact of CGI on teaching and learning mathematics.

This is the first year that Arkansas has hosted the conference. The last CGI conference was in the summer of 2009 in San Diego, and the next one will be in July 2013 in Des Moines, Iowa.