Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction Project
Funding Partner: Children's Board of Hillsborough County
Principal Investigator: Amanda Tazaz Ph.D.
Project Announcement
April 19, 2023
Tampa, FL – The Learning Systems Institute (LSI) at Florida State University has received a two-year grant from the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County. The Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction project will aim to enhance the effectiveness of early elementary mathematics in Hillsborough County by providing mathematics teacher professional development to 300 voluntary pre-kindergarten (VPK) through third grade teachers in collaboration with Hillsborough County Public Schools.
The program will begin this summer and continue through the school year 2023-24 and 2024-25. The Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) program provided to teachers during the Successful Start project is based on an evidence-based CGI program that meets the What Works Clearinghouse standards for moderate evidence of effectiveness. CGI is one of the few mathematics teacher professional development programs that has this level of proven evidence of effectiveness."Graphic featuring the LSI logo, the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County logo and a photo of Dr. Amanda Tazaz. The headline is "LSI has been awarded a grant from the Children’s Board Of Hillsborough County to fund a new cognitively guided instruction project.""
“The Successful Start project will provide training and support to teachers who serve students in VPK to third grade,” said principal investigator and LSI Senior Research Associate Dr. Amanda Tazaz. “These are the foundational grades where students learn the basics of mathematics necessary for success in later, more challenging mathematics courses. Research has also shown that student mathematics knowledge and achievement in preschool and the earliest grades of elementary predicts later success in the upper elementary years.”
The premise of the CGI program is that all students enter school with intuitive knowledge and abilities that can serve as the basis for developing their mathematical ideas. Teachers can help students build on that intuitive knowledge to develop a progressively abstract understanding of mathematics that make up the elementary school curriculum.
In the program, teachers learn how students initially use concrete materials, such as drawings and math manipulatives, to solve math problems and how those procedures with the concrete materials evolve and are linked to more formal, abstract mathematics operations. This formal understanding will help participating teachers better understand the different ranges of mathematics abilities of students in their classroom, allowing for differentiated instruction with the goal of improving student achievement.
This project will expand LSI’s previous work in the district by providing a more focused CGI professional development program to meet the needs of teachers in Hillsborough County. This focus is based upon specific program modification requests from local teachers and school district officials who participated in the prior implementation of the CGI program. It will include more explicit instruction and support on how to implement the CGI program ideas in the classroom utilizing district-approved resources.
The Successful Start project will meet the needs requested by lower elementary grades Hillsborough County teachers by developing supplemental early numeracy content for the professional development program and additional resources for teachers to use in the classroom.
2024 Update
The Successful Start project is a partnership between LSI, The Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, and Hillsborough County Public Schools. The project team provides early elementary school teachers with 8-days of mathematics teacher professional development based on Cognitively Guided Instruction.
In the 2023-2024 school year, 150 teachers from 20 elementary schools joined the CGI teacher training program. These teachers received training, coaching, and support from LSI’s team of CGI experts. The project also collected and analyzed data on how the program affected teachers and students, such as teacher knowledge, beliefs, and practices, and student achievement, attitudes, and involvement in math. Results from the first year of the project were very good.
2025 Update
The continued partnership between LSI, The Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, and Hillsborough County Public Schools provided an opportunity for elementary school teachers from across Hillsborough County to participate in an intensive eight-day CGI mathematics training. The Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) project aims to reshape mathematics education by placing students’ mathematical thinking at the forefront of classroom practice.
CGI, a research-based approach, centers on understanding how children naturally develop mathematical concepts. The program trains educators to closely observe and interpret students’ problem-solving strategies, tailoring instruction to build upon what children know rather than simply following a prescribed curriculum. Major CGI components include recognizing students’ informal math strategies, fostering mathematical discussions, and encouraging children to articulate their reasoning.
Organizers of Successful Start: CGI project report overwhelmingly positive feedback from participating teachers, who now feel better equipped to recognize and respond to the diverse ways their students grasp mathematical ideas. By emphasizing students’ thought processes, the program’s overarching goal is to create more responsive, effective, and engaging math instruction in Hillsborough County’s elementary classrooms. Early indications suggest that this investment in teacher learning is paving the way for deeper student understanding and improved outcomes in mathematics.
2026 Update
Successful Start is a continuing partnership among Florida State University’s Learning Systems Institute, the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, and Hillsborough County Public Schools designed to strengthen mathematics teaching and learning in elementary classrooms. During the reporting year, the project provided approximately 150 elementary school teachers with professional learning in Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI), supporting teachers in developing instructional practices that build on students’ mathematical thinking and problem-solving strategies. The project also supported dissemination of findings by enabling teachers and project staff to present their work at the national CGI conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Evaluation results indicate positive outcomes for both teachers and students. Participating teachers demonstrated significant improvements in mathematical knowledge for teaching, reported changes in their beliefs about students’ capacity to learn mathematics, and experienced reduced mathematics anxiety following participation. Student achievement data also suggest positive impacts, with students in participating teachers’ classrooms performing better in mathematics on the district-administered assessment. Collectively, these findings provide evidence that Successful Start is contributing to improved teacher knowledge, beliefs, and confidence, while supporting stronger mathematics outcomes for elementary students in Hillsborough County.
In addition to teacher professional learning, the project extended support to families through Family Math Nights and accessible family resources provided through the Successful Start Tampa project website. These efforts were designed to help families better understand and support students’ mathematical learning beyond the classroom. Family Math Nights offered opportunities for families to engage in meaningful mathematics activities with their children, while the project website provides grade-level resources, unit flyers, practice problems, and activities aligned with classroom instruction. By connecting classroom learning with family engagement, the project strengthened home-school partnerships and provided families with practical tools to support children’s mathematical confidence, problem solving, and continued learning.
