[Blindmath] Struggling Mathematics Student

Fri Oct 17 00:31:19 UTC 2014

For now, you could try using XL, and also some websites have online calculators that will help with specific functions if you just Google it.also, look online for a Z score table.there are also some websites where you can type in your value and get the corresponding z score.your teacher can also make tactile graphs very easily in just a few seconds by putting a piece of paper on top of a piece of vinyl and drawing on it. You can actually feel it really well, andyou don't have to pay a lot of money for one of those expensive drawing boards with the expense of paper.as for handouts and things that your teacher gives you,if the handouts are in digital format, but the only problem is the equations, you can either have your teacher or a math professor who works alongside your teacher redo the equations for you.it actually doesn't take very long because they are just redoing the equations, not the whole handout.if the handout is only printed, you could still OCR it,and the professor you're working with could just go through and check for errors and also fix the equations so the work isn't so hard.as for the book, that's a harder one.Learning Ally has math books, but they are in audio format.The problem would be getting an up-to-date addition in time because it's too late to request it now.another problem is that especially for the higher-level math courses, doing math using audio is so hard that it's almost not even worth it.Book share has math books, and in my experience, they have tried it to include the equations, but the formatting is so weird that I can't read or make sense of them very well.because the equations are the most important part, that book no longer helps me. It will be even worse if you try to get the PDF from the publisher.if you can find an earlier addition in an accessible format, you could see if your professor will let you do your homework out of that one.I would say the main thing is to work on getting your homework  an and accessible format.I have found that for the explanations of how to do it, textbooks can oftentimes not be the best options.it's true that the people who write them use a lot of examples, but they aren't very clear about what they're doing. They just put numbers down and expect people to understand where they come from.they also sometimes don't get to the point very well, and they fail to connect graphical concepts with algebraic concepts, which especially for a blind person can be confusing.if you want the explanation from your textbook, you can try using an earlier addition, or if there is a lot of text and not as much equations, you might have better luck listening to that using audio if it's available.another thing you can do is go to the Internet and just Google what you want to figure out how to do.for example, you could Google how to put a quadratic equation into vertex form,and you would get lots of articles that would tell you how. It's true that some of them won't have accessible equations, but a lot of them actually will.some equations will be written in such a way so that on either side of the formula, there is this weird text, but you can just ignore that part and just read the formula.also, I'm sure that some of the people on this list can give you the formulas you need in an accessible format.you could also get a peer tutor. That would be a really good thing becauseThe tutor will have a more flexible schedule then the teacher and will be able to provide you some and devoted one on one time that the teacher might not.I think it would be best to work directly with the professors and your math department on the formatting of documents and exams and things like that becauseyou really need to actually no math to make sure it's done correctly.for example, if someone is converting an equation for you that includes a fraction written in a spatial format that sighted people enjoy,they need to know where to put parentheses and things like that when they're converting it to a linear format so they will do it without changing the meaning of the equation.some graphs are also not very helpful in a tactile format, so the person you are working with will need to know how to describe graphs in a way that you can understand, but where you can actually do the problem.for your statistics class, I think you should definitely get a tactile version of the normal model distribution that isn't skewed, but is skewed to the left, and that is skewed to the right.it's also helpful if you can get these formulas converted into a list of steps you can follow because sometimes they don't really make sense and formula form.and if using a calculator or another tool turns out to be more trouble than it's worth, you can look into doing some of these things by hand.for the graphs, it really helps me to start out learning how to do it algebraically,and then relate what I learned about the data to how it would be presented on a physical graph and how it might change under certain conditions.when I'm doing transformations for example, I'm not thinking of a graph. I'm thinking of My equation in and how it will change because that's the most important. When I get the equation I Think about how that would translate into a graph if necessary.I also like audio graphs because I can hear the whole graph  and make sure I don't miss anything. Also, I seem to remember them better for some reason, whereas I can't remember anything about a tactile graph once it goes away.there is this free program called math tracks where you can take your equation, put it in there, and it makes an audio graph. I alsolook for three-dimensional objects wherever possible. I remember the lessons I had involving three-dimensional objects a lot better than anything involving just a boring picture.

> On Oct 16, 2014, at 12:06 PM, Ken Perry via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> We would like to have you call our customer service here at APH and get that
> Calculator fixed.  What do you mean it gave out on you.  Please email me
> directly kperry at aph.org.  I am the project leader on that calculator and am
> very interested in why it would not be working.
> 
> Ken
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Clayton
> Jacobs via Blindmath
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 9:26 AM
> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [Blindmath] Struggling Mathematics Student
> 
> I am a college student currently taking College Algebra With Limits and
> Statistics. In both classes, I am not doing well. In College Algebra With
> Limits, the professor speeds through his lectures, and even though I type
> out the equations he puts on the board, I can't keep up with him. To make
> matters worse, my Orion Ti-84 Plus calculator decided to give on me after
> only having it for 4 months. The note packets are inaccessible, and while
> the disability department at my college is translating the packets, it is
> almost too late in the semester. Additionally, the professor does not
> explain the steps he uses to solve the problems, so my tutor has to do all
> of the work in teaching me. While I have aced my homework, I have failed
> both of my exams so far. The first exam was inaccessible, and the reader
> couldn't even read the exam properly to me to even make sense of it. The
> second exam, which I took yesterday, covered material not even on the review
> sheet. Here was one of the problems verbatim, which I tried my best to
> solve. Factor the expression into a product of linear factors given that 1-i
> is a zero. f(x)=x^4-7x^3+18x^2-26x+12 In Statistics, the professor was great
> in trying to get me accessible notes, but fell short when formulas were
> concerned. I still do not know how to compute the standard error, margin of
> error, confidence intervals, and finding probabilities between z scores or
> areas. I am at a loss of what to do at this point. Trying to explain
> accessibility with formulas has been a nightmare, especially with my College
> Algebra With Limits professor, who has adamantly refused to translate the
> equations into accessible form because that requires too much work for him,
> according to his statement. I had to file a federal complaint against this
> college last year for failing to accommodate, in which a mediation agreement
> was reached. Yet, in many ways, it seems the faculty have treated this as a
> drop in the bucket. I have had such a bad experience with collegiate
> accommodations that I have questioned why I even went back to college in the
> first place. 
>                         
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