SEED Instruction utilized the Socratic method, in which instructors use a question-and-answer approach to guide students to the discovery of mathematical principles.
While teaching students, Project SEED Mathematics Specialists simultaneously provide professional development training for classroom teachers, through modeling and coaching in its instructional strategies.
Founded by math teacher and psychologist William Johntz in 1963 to improve the educational outcomes of low-income and minority students, Project SEED was last run by CEO and National Director Hamid Ebrahimi.
Frustrated by the failure of standard remediation to improve the basic math skills of his students, he began teaching them algebra using a Socratic, question-and-answer technique.
They responded well to this new material that allowed them to think conceptually about mathematics, but since they were already in high school, there was little time left for them to turn around their academic careers.
Project SEED became a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation in Michigan in 1970 where state funding brought the program to ten different cities between 1970 and 1975.
From 1982 through 2002, a district funded program in Dallas, Texas reached tens of thousands of students and hundreds of teachers in dozens of schools.
Students in identified schools received a semester of Project SEED instruction for three consecutive years beginning in the second, third, or fourth grade, a program design that is now regarded as the preferred model.
Hundreds of articles about Project SEED have appeared in newspapers and magazines as well as a number of academic books about successful intervention programs.
[4] Currently, Project SEED operated programs in California, Michigan, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington state.