A Brief Overview of SEQuaL

 Since 1992, the Statistics Education through Quantitative Literacy (SEQuaL) project has provided professional development for over 600 Pennsylvania teachers through workshops, conferences, and the operation of Center for Statistics Education in PA. Through the years, the program has grown both in size and scope.  Now K-12 Workshops are offered at regional sites throughout Pennsylvania.  Two additional workshops, the Multi-Disciplinary SEQuaL and the Data-Driven Approach to Teaching Middle School and Secondary Math, build upon the original workshop to link statistics with other subject areas and with algebra and geometry, respectively.

 The idea for SEQuaL was born in the minds of a group of IUP professors in 1990, led by Jack Shepler. Two out of the thirteen strands of the new NCTM mathematics standards concerned statistics and probability. At that time, the American Statistical Association offered to assist universities in presenting a Quantitative Literacy (QL) workshop for secondary teachers that had been developed through previous NSF grants in conjunction with NCTM.  Larry Feldman, Debbie Gressley Gurcsik, Barbara Lamberski, Ann Massey, Fred Morgan, Jack Shepler, and John Uccellini developed a proposal to bring the ASA secondary workshop to IUP and to develop a complementary elementary workshop. Pat Hopfensperger, Jerry Moreno, Catherine Rowe, and Richard Scheaffer, along with others from the ASA provided their expertise and support. Funded by an Eisenhower Professional Development Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), the first K – 12 SEQuaL workshop was launched in the summer of 1992 at IUP as a joint effort with the American Statistical Association. 

By 1995, word of the program had spread throughout the state.  With the encouragement of Linda Benedetto, Higher Education Coordinator of the Eisenhower program at PDE, and the enthusiasm and hard work of Elaine Carbone, the Program Coordinator at the time, the K-12 SEQuaL program was offered at four locations across Pennsylvania.  It continues to be offered at varying regional sites across the state. 

The K-12 SEQuaL program has proven to be an exciting, standards-based approach to teaching statistical techniques in the K-12 classroom.  Through stimulating and practical activities, participants in the K-6 and 7-12 workshops explore real data and focus on classifying, graphing, sampling, probability and simulation, with the help of ASA statisticians. They experience first-hand the value of QL and gain confidence in their ability to incorporate it into their curriculum.

In 1996, teams of teachers representing various subject areas developed cross-curriculum statistics projects for their schools at the first Multi-Disciplinary SEQuaL Workshop offered at IUP.  Each team was composed of at least one mathematics teacher who had previously taken a SEQuaL workshop and at least one teacher from the same school who taught a subject other than mathematics.  The mathematics teachers were taught inferential statistics, while the non-mathematics teachers were taught content appropriate for teachers who will not teach statistics but who will be working with data collection and analysis.  The teams who participated in these workshops from 1996-99 developed exciting, unique projects.

The newest workshop, A Data-Driven Approach to the Teaching of Middle School and Secondary Math, enables teachers to replace lessons from the standard pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry curriculum with lessons that use data collection and analysis to teach the same content.  Data-Driven Mathematics, a series developed by the ASA with a NSF grant, are the basis for this workshop.  Pat Hopfensperger and Henry Kranendonk, two of the authors of the Data-Driven Mathematics series, are part of the workshop team for 1999.

SEQuaL has been at the forefront of many innovations in the teaching of probability and statistics since its beginnings in 1990.  Significant milestones in the growth of SEQuaL are:

1992:
Created a K-6 quantitative literacy workshop 

A K-6 quantitative literacy workshop and a 6-12 QL workshop offered   concurrently at IUP

 A model for sustained professional development consisting of a pre-session in the spring, a week-long session in the summer, a post-session in the fall, and a final session in the following spring

1993:
An extensive mentoring process began whereby K-12 teachers move from participants, to teaching associates, to SEQuaL faculty

 Mathematics Academic Alliance in Quantitative Literacy meetings, a joint effort with ARIN Intermediate Unit

 Integration of multiple QL assessment techniques for K-12

Quantitative Literature newsletter issued 3 times per year

1995-current:
K-6 and 6-12 SEQuaL workshops offered at regional sites

1996-1999:
Multi-Disciplinary QL Workshop for teams of teachers (grades 6-12)

SEQuaL Facilitator’s Guide developed

1997:
Quantitative Literacy in Future Years (QUALiFY) conference

1998:
Sequel to SEQuaL Conference to assist teachers in leading their own QL workshops

1999:
A Data-Driven Approach to the Teaching of Middle School and Secondary Math

 This is a brief overview of the history of the SEQuaL Project in Pennsylvania, which continues to receive funding from the Pennsylvania Eisenhower Professional Development Program.  Readers who would like more information about the project or about the workshops offered through the Center may contact: Center for Statistics Education in PA, Stright Hall, Room 211, 210 South Tenth Street, Indiana, PA  15705-1087, or 724-357-6239, or email iwiggins@grove.iup.edu.