[Blindmath] moving diagonally on a graph

[Benjamin Davison]

Mary,

Thanks for your posting. It's great to learn about accessibility 
challenges that people are facing. Often the research and development 
community makes too many assumptions about what people need. I can't 
speak to the arithmetic and radicals side; I agree that accessible 
calculators should provide this. But I'll comment on some other parts.

Can you point me to the Georgia Performance Standards, or specific 
questions that the student is facing? Is it problems like triangle 
centers? For example, problems about finding the best location for a 
cell tower between three cities. These are some of the most difficult 
math problems at the Georgia Academy for the Blind. You can find the 
standards at 
https://www.georgiastandards.org/Standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/MathStandards9-12.aspx 
.

There are two key parts to graphing: point estimation and trend 
analysis. While trends are important, point estimation in many ways is 
more fundamental. For example, you mentioned how the student misread the 
starting coordinates, and that affected your son's answers. Finding the 
coordinates on a visual graph is still x-y, even though the lines are 
diagonal.

You make a great point about using tools on a test; many useful tools 
may not be approved (or appropriate) for a test. For example, they might 
give too much information for a test situation. But, if that tool helps 
the student learn the concept, then the student may more easily be able 
to use a different tool during a test. Going further, developers must 
keep testing in mind. One way is to ensure that the construct is being 
preserved with the tool. For example, the steps used in one way is the 
same as a different way. More rigorously, developers can evaluate 
whether VI students do no worse and sighted students do no better. This 
could show that VI students are not getting an "unfair advantage" with 
the tool.

I'm running research on accessible math in Georgia. If you, your 
student, or his TVI and teachers are interested in participating in 
research, please contact me offlist, davison at gatech.edu.

Thanks,
- Ben


On 5/13/2012 2:39 PM, Mary Woodyard wrote:
> I am a parent who has started reading this discussion group because I have a
> vision impaired 9th grader in Georgia who is taking an integrated math
> curriculum this year.  I do not understand all of what I am reading - but it
> is clear that we both need to become more proficient with Math Assistive
> Technology for him to be successful in 10th grade math.  After reading the
> last posting, I wanted to throw out for consideration the graphing high
> school classroom requirements with Parallelograms and the Pythagorean
> Theorem.  My son has been doing a coordinate geometry unit for the last 6
> weeks that has been most challenging.  All of the triangle standards involve
> moving diagonally on a graph.
>
>
>
> He has missed several summative test questions on mid-points and distance of
> points from each other because he misread the beginning graph coordinates.
> We have fixed the contrast on the tests, so this should not be a problem
> going forward.  With the implementation of the National Curriculum Core that
> 49 states are implementing,  this distance and midpoint standard is moving
> to 8th grade.  This also presents a calculator challenge for VI students as
> none of the Scientific Calculators that are currently available simplify
> radicals.  Because the formula for distance is probably going to end up with
> a radical - this is a void that needs to be corrected so vi students can be
> successful in middle and high school curriculum.  Although simplifying
> radicals can be done manually part of the time - a lot of my son's
> curriculum requirements have asked for the answer to be converted from a
> radical to hundredths - and this is much easier with a scientific
> calculator.
>
>
>
> We did look at using the TI emulation software for the TI SX30 which is the
> calculator that my son's school has standardized on.  However, the school
> said that it was cumbersome and required constant updates so he just uses
> the TI SX30 under a CCTV when he needs to simplify radicals and a TI-36X
> Orion for the other Statistics and Algebra requirements.  These
> Parallelogram and Triangle standards are probably going to be much harder as
> he progresses through high school.   One last thing to consider for students
> as they use tools for high schools is that schools typically will not allow
> students to use a tool unless they can be College Board Approved.  The Orion
> TI-36X did get College Board and EOCT approved for my son.  Some of the IPAD
> aps and other types of tools are helpful to learn with - but a school may
> not allow the student to use on a test.
>
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