[Blindmath] Math Teaching Techniques

[Ryan Thomas]

Dear Arielle,

   Yes, it can be very visual.  A lot of statistics is.  Firstly I've
made powerpoints.  You can do most ona powerpoint that others would do
with a chalkboard, even allowing answers to appear as you work through
a problem.  You can make graphs and insert them into your slides.
I've drawn things on the board before, but I'm never sure how
effective that is.  When I've taught in a room with a whiteboard I've
made graphs on the surface with wikisticks.  That's useful because it
allows me to feel the drawing and add lines with a dry erase marker or
other wikisticks if I wish.
   You can also do a lot of class participation exercises.  Students
can come up and draw on the board.  Then you can talk it out with the
class.  What is correct, what might be lacking.  Even without having
them describe it to you, just a few leading teacherish questions give
a very clear idea as to whether the graph is correct or not.  I've
also come in with crayon drawings I've made on my screenboard and I've
given them to different students, had them draw those figures on the
board and talked about the properties of each graph.
   Finally, I use worksheets too.  Sometimes they're strictly
problems, but other times they may include a couple topics to learn
and work on as we progress in class.  You can add figures to those
like you would in slides.  They can also draw on the worksheets and
see what you've done.  Other instructors may have good resources like
worksheets that are already made.  Those are what I can think of at
the moment.  I hope that's somewhat helpful.

Sincerely,
   Ryan

On 11/8/12, Jonathan Godfrey <a.j.godfrey at massey.ac.nz> wrote:
> Hi Arielle et al.,
>
> I've just finished a semester where I taught sections of three different
> statistics courses. A first year course with over 350 students studying
> both
> on and off campus, and smaller classes at advanced undergraduate and
> postgraduate levels. The way I tackled each class was different because of
> the audience I was dealing with.
>
> My lectures for the first year class were recorded for the use of those
> students off campus wich had an impact on the way I delivered those
> lectures. Generally, my style is heavily interactive. I might list the
> things we want to look for in a histogram and then expect the class to
> decide what that means for the data sets provided. Let them be my eyes is a
> useful classroom tool. Of course, I already know and can recall from the
> notes I keep on hand what I expect to hear.
>
> The first time a course is run is the hardest. My preparations for the
> lectures probably take me twice as long as my sighted colleagues, but the
> second time I do almost nothing. For example. Preparing lectures for the
> first year class I taught from 2005 to 2011 probably took me 6 or 7 hours
> of
> preparation for every hour of class time. When I delivered those lectures
> in
> 2011, I could read the slides for the hour of lectures I would be
> delivering
> at 9 o'clock while I was in the taxi on the way to work at 8:45. (It's a 7
> minute drive to work by the way) My point is that any time you spend in
> preparing for lectures is not a short term investment. It may take years to
> reap the rewards.
>
> There are too many other issues you might want to discuss that I can't
> address in a single email message. Do keep asking questions but make it
> easier to help by keeping them specific when you can.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Arielle
> Silverman
> Sent: Friday, 9 November 2012 2:43 p.m.
> To: Blind Academics Discussion List
> Cc: social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org; blindmath
> Subject: [Blindmath] Math Teaching Techniques
>
> Hi all,
> I was just curious whether any of you have experience teaching quantitative
> subjects at the college level (i.e. math, chemistry, statistics etc.) and
> if
> so, could you share a little bit about any alternative methods you use for
> teaching sighted students? As a soon-to-be psychology Ph.D. I am qualified
> to teach statistics courses, but I've observed that at least at the
> introductory level, a lot of the content is traditionally presented in a
> very visual way, i.e. with histograms, emphasis on the graphical properties
> of probability distributions, etc. I didn't learn that way myself and so
> I'm
> a little lost as to how I would present this kind of material in a way that
> is accessible to sighted students. How have you handled these kinds of
> issues?
> Best,
> Arielle
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/a.j.godfrey%40massey.
> ac.nz
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/rlt56%40nau.edu
>