[Blindmath] Understanding math versus passing standardized tests of math

Mon Nov 25 01:46:11 UTC 2013

While I agree that there are many misperceptions and problems with the system, I would like to suggest that we try to look forward in a proactive way, to work together to develop possible solutions.  For those of you who are blind or low vision please share with us who are sighted and who are educators.  What's works for you?  What doesn't work?  Did you have teachers who came up with creative ideas or solutions?  Amanda Lacy, I would love to know more about your 3D shapes for Calc III.  I would love to see us grow a database of best practices so that future students and teachers and parents can benefit.  Just my two cents.

Sent from my iPad

Bente J. Casile

> On Nov 24, 2013, at 11:01 AM, sabra1023 <sabra1023 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Even on the standardized test, it's not fair for a blind person to have to interpret 2-D representation of a 3-D object when that entire representation is based on a lifelong visual perception. I don't like those tests much, but their makers care about whether they're biased toward all manner of minority group, but apparently don't care if they're fair for blind people.
> 
>> On Nov 24, 2013, at 9:10 AM, "Lewicki, Maureen" <mlewicki at bcsd.neric.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I agree, Susan about this: " a growing disconnect between 
>>> the math knowledge and understanding that is likely to turn out to be 
>>> useful and the math questions that show up on standardized tests." Essentially we can 'thank' the developers of Common Core for the disconnect!  
>> 
>> Maureen Murphy Lewicki
>> Maureen Murphy Lewicki
>> Teacher of Visually Impaired
>> Bethlehem Central School
>> 332 Kenwood AvenueDelmar, NY 12054
>> http://bethlehemschools.org
>> (518) 439-7460
>> Fax (518) 475-0092
>> "The real problem of blindness is not the loss of eyesight.  The
>> real problem is the misunderstanding and lack of education that
>> exists.  If a blind person has the proper training and
>> opportunity, blindness can be reduced to a mere physical
>> nuisance."Kenneth Jernigan
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of David Tseng
>> Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 6:01 PM
>> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Understanding math versus passing standardized tests of math
>> 
>> I agree with you on your general point that there's issues in the way blind students are taught math today.
>> 
>> Teachers and VI specialists take on the task of creative ways to represent information to a blind student if the student is lucky. However, the quality of this "creativity" varies wildly amongst educators. You get even more variation when you get to university where professors can have all sorts of competing priorities and demands on their time.
>> 
>> With that said, to address your specific point, I firmly believe visualization is quite important when dealing with math. Many concepts (i.e. the derivative), have an intuitive definition only obtained by visual means.
>> Graphing functions is another way to understand relationships between two sets of numbers (or three in the case of three variables, and so on).
>> 
>> The challenge lies in the way blind students should be taught and tested.
>> It doesn't change the usefulness of picturing a graph. Going through the steps of plotting helps reinforce the aspects of functions that can seem "abstract" when only staring at an equation.
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Susan Jolly <easjolly at ix.netcom.com>wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm commenting as a "sightling."
>>> 
>>> I'm retired from a successful career involving applied math and 
>>> computational math.  I started out as a high school chemistry teacher 
>>> and then went to graduate school to get a degree in computational 
>>> (theoretical) chemistry.  I can't ever remember having to plot by hand 
>>> a function of two variables either as a student or in my career and 
>>> I've had very little need to even interpret a plane projection of a 
>>> such a function.  I do not consider this an important general "math 
>>> skill".  It is, rather, something someone can learn when necessary.
>>> 
>>> From the latest discussion on this list and also from reading about 
>>> math education it seems to me there is a growing disconnect between 
>>> the math knowledge and understanding that is likely to turn out to be 
>>> useful and the math questions that show up on standardized tests.  
>>> Questions based on visual representations are clearly unfair to 
>>> students who are blind or have various visual impairments but they may 
>>> also be unfair to sighted students if they obscure the students' lack of real understanding.
>>> 
>>> The CAST organization has a number of US government supported research 
>>> programs aimed at Universal Design for Learning.  They have not to my 
>>> knowledge addressed the problem of testing.  Here is a link to their 
>>> website if you want to read more about UDL and/or contact them.
>>> 
>>> http://www.cast.org/index.html
>>> 
>>> Best wishes,
>>> SusanJ
>>> 
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