[Blindmath] college and math

[Debbie Willis]

Our Accessible Tests guidelines recommend that students taking an audio version of a test be provided with a braille/tactile graphics and/or large print edition of the test as well.  As mentioned, in an audio presentation, it is extremely difficult to envision a tactile graphic and its labels.  It is also extremely difficult to rely only on audio information and remember it all when taking a math test in which equations are being provided in the stem, and several options are being offered as possible answer choices.
Debbie

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Jevnikar
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 3:30 PM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] college and math

I think mental math is possible, but as far as learning a concept, I'd have
to use Braille. Visualizing things in my head takes too long.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jason White
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 1:14 AM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] college and math

Sina Bahram <sbahram at nc.rr.com> wrote:
> I respectfully will disagree with this. I think everyone has unique
learning
> styles for sure, but it's sort of equivalent  to saying that sighted
> students can do math without any print available. Sometimes, that's
> absolutely true, to varying extents, but usually, it's far from it.

I concur.
>
> Especially for the fundamentals, I think Braille is essential.

Agreed.

I've heard reliable reports of students' spending a lot of time taking
braille
notes from audio narrations of mathematics texts, then working from the
braille notes. This adds considerably to a student's workload. The point,
though, is that it's the braille which is used in such cases for learning
the
material.

It wouldn't surprise me if there are people who can listen to a reading of a
complex mathematical text and understand it from the recording, but I
strongly
suspect that those people are in a minority.


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