James Hiebert, professor emeritus in UD’s College of Education and Human Development, talks with mathematics education doctoral students during a graduate seminar.

Lifetime achievements in mathematics education

Article by Jessica Henderson Photos by Evan Krape and courtesy of Michelle Cirillo and Lynsey Gibbons November 18, 2024

UD Professor Emeritus James Hiebert receives National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Lifetime Achievement Award

James Hiebert, professor emeritus in the University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), didn’t set out to be a mathematics educator. But he was inspired to pursue mathematics by a college professor whose enthusiasm for the subject was contagious. After studying for hours for an especially difficult final exam, Hiebert experienced a rare epiphany in which the course content finally made sense.

“I thought, ‘Whoa, that is a big adrenaline rush. If that happens when you're studying math, I'm totally in,’” Hiebert recalled. “It was a little bit of a false indicator of how fun math could be because that happened only once or twice more in my life. But by that time, I was hooked.”

Now, after a 40-year career defined by groundbreaking research in mathematics education, Hiebert has received the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Lifetime Achievement Award. His innovative work has also defined UD’s distinctive undergraduate and graduate programs in mathematics education.

Early inspiration

Hiebert returned to higher education to pursue a doctoral degree after teaching high school mathematics. During his first year of doctoral study, he completed a term at Oxford University, studying the development of children’s logical thinking and setting the trajectory for his early career in mathematics education.

“It completely changed my mind about what academics was, about what scholarship was and what it means to know something pretty deeply,” Hiebert said. “So then I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to study children's thinking and how to teach children. Listening to children’s thinking about mathematics has been another kind of adrenaline rush.”

Groundbreaking contributions to mathematics

Hiebert joined the faculty in CEHD’s School of Education in 1982. His colleagues point to his 1999 video study, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, as one of his greatest contributions to the field. With James Stigler of the University of California, Los Angeles, Hiebert analyzed and synthesized the mathematics teaching in U.S. schools and compared it with the mathematics teaching in six high-achieving countries. Hiebert was especially impressed with the K-8 teachers in Japan, who had adopted a model for continually improving their lessons.

Hiebert (center) with colleagues Amanda Jansen (left), professor in CEHD’s School of Education, and Charles Hohensee (right), associate professor in the School of Education.

Their research identified significant differences between U.S. instruction and instruction in other countries, leading to the publication of The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom and an invitation to testify on the subject before Congress.

“Jim spent his career working to advance a culture of equity by advocating for all students to have access to high-quality teaching and opportunities to learn mathematics through problem solving, reasoning and sense making,” said Michelle Cirillo, professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who nominated him for NCTM’s award. “His work has led to publications for classroom teachers, policymakers and mathematics education researchers alike.”

A unique approach to mathematics education

Not surprisingly, Hiebert took what he learned and applied it to UD’s mathematics education programs. Beginning in 2000, Hiebert, Associate Professor Dawn Berk in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and other UD colleagues received National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to revise and study three mathematics courses within CEHD’s K-8 teacher education program. With continued NSF funding over the next 15 years, Hiebert and his team designed a unique, nationally-known program that better prepared pre-service teachers for their mathematics classrooms.

Rather than covering a wide range of math topics, Hiebert and his team identified a carefully chosen but limited set of math topics based on their importance for children’s later success (like working with fractions). The faculty then taught these concepts deeply and comprehensively, while modeling a research-based instructional approach. In line with Hiebert’s research in continuous improvement, the team also made data-based improvements to the courses each semester.

Hiebert accepted the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Lifetime Achievement Award at the council’s annual conference in September 2024.

Ten years later, Hiebert and his colleagues collected clear evidence that CEHD’s teacher education students gained deeper knowledge of mathematics topics and developed more effective teaching strategies as a result of this program. After analyzing data from 150 graduates teaching in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, they found that CEHD alumni were well-prepared to teach the math topics from these courses, even seven years after learning them. The data demonstrated that teacher preparation can have a profound effect on beginning teachers’ competence.

“In addition to his incredible contributions to the field, Jim has been a fierce advocate for high-quality mathematics teaching and learning for each and every student, including his own undergraduate and graduate students,” Cirillo said.

CEHD’s undergraduate program in mathematics education and UD’s Mathematical Sciences Learning Laboratory, housed in the College of Arts and Sciences, continue to offer these high-quality learning experiences.

Distinctive graduate mentorship

Hiebert and his team also engaged mathematics education doctoral students in their NSF-funded work. They participated in the collaborative effort to continually improve the undergraduate courses, assisted with collecting and analyzing the outcomes data and regularly taught the courses using the lesson plans the team developed and continuously improved.

"David Cohen [a respected educator in the field] once observed how difficult it is to develop high-quality Ph.D. programs and high-quality teacher training undergraduate programs at the same time in the same place,” Hiebert recalled. “We often choose: are we going to put our resources into the Ph.D. program or are we going to become a teacher training institute and put our resources at that level? And, I thought, 'Our work with these NSF grants could solve that problem.' And I think that's what happened here at UD: the quality of the training program for our mathematics pre-service teachers has become really high. And it also became a setting in which doctoral students could learn how to do research, how to be teacher educators and participate in a lot of experiences that would enable them to be well-prepared faculty."

Hiebert (second from left) with colleagues Lynsey Gibbons (left), associate professor in the School of Education, Erica Litke (second from right), associate professor in the School of Education, and Michelle Cirillo (right), professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ conference.

CEHD graduates continue to speak highly about the integration of research and teaching experiences in the doctoral program, but they especially value Hiebert’s compassionate mentorship.

“Jim is unquestionably the best mentor I have ever had, and this has continued past the completion of my doctoral studies,” said Erin Meikle, a 2015 Ph.D. in education alumna. “He has always been available to provide feedback, facilitate my growth in knowledge and skills, provide career advice and models how to not only engage in academic discourse in a constructive, meaningful way but models how to be a kind, caring and charitable person with every person he encounters.”

To learn more about research in mathematics teaching and learning, visit CEHD’s STEM education research page.