Lifetime achievements in mathematics education

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.