News

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Library & Information Services (LIS) has published a new digital collection featuring the Seedbed mathematics teaching journal.  

Originally, a print publication of Seedbed was produced by the SIUE School of Education, Health and Human Behavior from 1979-1993. It functioned as an innovative, grassroots journal intended to facilitate the sharing of ideas regarding the teaching of mathematics among a network of school teachers.  

Dr. Thomas Clement O’Brien, a professor of elementary education and head of the Teachers’ Center Project at SIUE, believed in teaching mathematical problem solving skills to elementary school children. He served as the guiding force and editor for Seedbed throughout its lifespan.  The digital collection includes all 42 published issues of the journal. 

“Dr. O’Brien, his associates at SIUE, and the many classroom teachers who contributed to Seedbed believed strongly that teaching math and math concepts to young learners was both possible and important,” said Stephen Kerber, University archivist and Special Collections librarian.  “Seedbed was very much driven by the contributors and was an extremely collaborative activity involving both teachers and students.  

“The charming student art contained in its issues illustrates the innovative and hopeful nature of the Seedbed experiment,” he continued. “We believe that the articles contributed to Seedbed by instructors from our region remain useful in the teaching of mathematics in the twenty-first century.” 

Kerber conceived the idea for the Seedbed digital collection and authored the introduction to it, including an accompanying bibliography listing all of O’Brien’s scholarly publications. 

View the Seedbed mathematics digital collection.