Cognitive Guided Instruction Grades K-5

Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is an approach to teaching mathematics where teachers observe children’s mathematical thinking and utilize student understanding to make informed instructional decisions.  It starts with what your students already know and builds on their natural number sense and intuitive approaches to problem solving. Rather than a math program or curriculum, CGI is a way of listening to students, asking smart questions, and engaging with their thinking—all with the goal of uncovering and expanding every student’s mathematical understanding. Over the past few years, elementary teachers in PUSD have had the opportunity to be trained in CGI in order to learn how to best foster students’ development as problem solvers who bring skill and confidence to mathematics situations.