I have had 3 blind students in the several years I've been teaching. The
most important thing I learned from them is that they are different. Not
just the obvious difference that we notice (they're blind & we're not!),
buy they are different from each other. Here are some of my experiences
and some of the things I learned.
My first student came into the precacalculus sequence during the quarter we
were doing trig. I was more than a little apprehensive. After class, we
talked briefly and Eileen promised to come to me whenever she needed help.
At this point, she had a specially modified cassette record that she used
to take Braille notes. She would key in her notes, the cassette tape
recorded the key strokes, and when replayed, raised the appropriate "bumps"
on a touch area. She didn't come by to see me so just before the first
test, I finally asked how she was doing. Her answer was "Ok, so far". I
suggested that she come to my office on the day of the test where I would
read the test to her, she could record the questions on her Brailler, work
the problems, and then give me her answers so that I could record them to
be graded. This suited her. Since the first test involved the usual
converting of angles from degrees to radians, finding trig functions for
angles in right triangles, knowing trig functions for special angles, etc.,
this worked just fine. As we got into graphing and more complicated kinds
of things, she produced the pad with plastic overlays and a stylus that
someone else has mentioned. She had little or no problems doing the kinds
of things that we do with trig functions to get ready to graph (find the
period, amplitude, etc) and her graphs were better than many of my sighted
students. After I had survived this experience, I patted myself on the
back, thought what a great teacher I was, and secretly thought thank
goodness it's over. Well, to make a very long story shorter, Eileen
registered for two quarters of calculus after that. Her cassette Brailler
broke and she couldn't get it fixed so she had to get out her mechanical
Brailler. But, she passed calculus with far less difficulty that many of
the sighted students. Eileen was very self-sufficient (she took snow
skiing and scuba diving classes), could improvise, and was fun to have in
class.
Interestingly, she started a statistics class and quit. This was 15 or
more years ago and there was just no easy way for her to cope with all the
arithmetic. Just a couple of years ago, she came by my office to talk.
One of the first things she said was, "I passed that damned statistics
class on the fourth try!"
Mark came along later and took precalculus. He relied on a standard
cassette recorder to record lectures, used a student reader to read tests,
and had the reader record his answers. He would do graphs with me telling
the important characteristics (intercepts, whatever) and then describe the
graph to me. We did fine as well. By the way, Mark enjoyed driving his
150 horsepower bass boat at high speeds. I tried to stay off the lake when
I knew he was going.
J. D. was my latest adventure. He took no notes at all, just listened in
class. He tried the student reader thing and flunked the first test
miserably. At that point, I made sure he came to my office at least once a
week for a drill session on the ideas. He improved on the second test, but
still did pretty bad. Since I knew he had a better knowledge of the
material than the test showed, I started reading his tests for him and
recording his answers. He ended up doing very well on the rest of the course.
So my experience tells me that you should be ready to experiment. Look
forward to a challenging (and, from my point of view, a rewarding)
experience. Technology has improved and there are several things you might
be able to use. If the student has any sight, there are readers that will
magnify the text considerably and project it onto something like a TV
screen. There are talking calculators as someone has mentioned. There is
computer software that will actually read what is on the screen. Mark was
able to get a laptop with this feature though the rehab folks.
Unfortunately, he got it near the end of our work together. Readers are
helpful, but make sure they are good math students as well. J. D. nearly
got lost because he and his reader weren't communicating well.
Best of luck. And please let me know how it's going.
Jerry
jerry_thornhill@sw.cc.va.us
Southwest Virginia Community College
Box SVCC
Richlands, VA 24641-1510
540-964-7328
At 12:56 PM 1/9/98 -0500, Peggy Womble wrote:
>I am teaching a class of development math- Math 060 - Essential Math
>(basic arithmetic) and have blind student in the class. The course
>covers fractions, decimals, %, basic geometry, signed numbers and simple
>equations, and reading graphs. Any suggestions for help with this
>situation. I have requested a reader for him during my class and he goes
>to our Academic Skills Center immediately after class for help. ANy
>suggestions would be appreciated.
>
>Peggy Womble, WCC
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jerry_thornhill@sw.cc.va.us
Southwest Virginia Community College
Box SVCC
Richlands, VA 24641-1510
540-964-7328
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