Diane Jane Briars (born 1951) is an American mathematics educator, the former president of both the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics and the

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Founded in 1920, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is a professional organization for schoolteachers of mathematics in the United States. One of its goals is to improve the standards of mathematics in education. NCTM holds an ...

. She has been an advocate for the Everyday Mathematics,

Connected Mathematics Connected Mathematics is a comprehensive mathematics program intended for U.S. students in grades 6-8. The curriculum design, text materials for students, and supporting resources for teachers were created and have been progressively refined by t ...

, and

Common Core State Standards Initiative The Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as simply Common Core, is an educational initiative from 2010 that details what K–12 students throughout the United States should know in English language arts and mathematics at the conc ...

mathematics education programs.

Education and career

Briars majored in mathematics at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, graduating in 1973. She has a master's degrees in mathematics and a Ph.D. in mathematics education from Northwestern; the topic of her 1984 doctoral dissertation was ''Individual Differences in Rule Discovery: An Exploratory Study of the Inductive Reasoning Game Eleusis''. She has taught mathematics at the middle school level in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...

, where Northwestern is located. After completing her Ph.D., she was a postdoctoral researcher at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, working there with

Jill H. Larkin Jill Huston Larkin (born July 15, 1943) is an American cognitive scientist, science educator and Professor at the Carnegie Mellon University known for her work on information representations. Biography Born in Chicago, Illinois, Larkin obtaine ...

, and briefly held a position as assistant professor of mathematics education at Northern Illinois University. She joined Pittsburgh Public Schools in 1986 as head of mathematics education. At Pittsburgh, she instituted the Everyday Mathematics program for elementary-school mathematics and the

program for middle-school mathematics. Her state teaching certifications were brought into question in 2005, as part of a political battle with the school board over the continuation of these two programs, and she was placed on leave from her position in 2006. She stepped down to become a consultant and mathematics education developer, and to co-direct the Algebra Intensification Project of the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

and

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. She served as president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics from 2009 to 2011, and of the

from 2014 to 2016. As NCTM president, she advocated for the

and used her platform to debunk what she has described as widely-spread falsehoods about the initiative.

Book

Briars is a coauthor of ''What Principals Need to Know about Teaching and Learning Mathematics'' (Solution Tree Press, 2012) and of a teacher guide to the mathematics components of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, ''Common Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work, Grades 6-8'' (Solution Tree Press, 2013).

Recognition

In 2009 the Pennsylvania Council of Supervisors of Mathematics gave Briars their Outstanding Contributions to Mathematics Supervision award. In 2018 the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics gave her their Ross Taylor/Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Briars, Diane 1951 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians American mathematics educators Northwestern University alumni Northern Illinois University faculty 20th-century American women