Planning for CGI

Cognitively Guided Instruction is not as based in planning as the traditional math lesson. The most important aspects of planning for an effective CGI lesson is selecting a problem and anticipating students responses.

Selecting the problem can be challenging because you want to make sure it is a realistic, familiar context and that students can solve in multiple ways and share their thinking. Anticipating responses ensures that you know where the lesson is going and which student work samples you will highlight to get at the learning goal for the day.

According to the newest version of Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction, the prepared CGI teacher:

• Chooses problem contexts that are accessible
• Ensures students have tool available to them to support their thinking
• Encourages students to do what makes sense to them
• Makes sure all students have a way to get started 

So much of CGI is adjusting instruction in the moment and changing course for the next day based on what students did today, this makes the planing process pretty basic. 

Here is an example template that can be used to plan for the lesson:

Here is the link to download a copy. 

Here is an example of a completed template for Kindergarten. 

Happy planning!