[Blindmath] Math Teaching Techniques

Fri Nov 9 10:26:41 UTC 2012

Hello,

The Sensational Blackboard gives you a means for rapidly making a sketch
that the blind can feel and the sighted can see.  It is $30 apiece.

http://sensationalbooks.com/
Phone: 303-238-4760

Regards
Louis Maher
713-444-7838
ljmaher at swbell.net
http://www.nfbtx.org/localchapters/houston  

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ryan
Thomas
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 10:39 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Math Teaching Techniques

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
>

_______________________________________________
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/ljmaher%40swbell.net