[Blindmath] Accessibility for being a blind math instructor

[Anna Givens]

David,
Thanks for the message.  I hope other people reply because I am nowhere close to being an expert on any of this, but I will tell you what I can.  Also i hope you have asked the same questions to some other lists as well, such as blind professionals, or nabs (the student list), or the science list.

First I would recommendtalking with yout colleages, your current or former professors or advisors to see what they think about your current method of teaching and how this might present problems in trying to get a teaching job or what you might do instead.  It seems to me that these people would know some of those answers.  
As for typing math in print.  I 
know there is a way to do this.  I don't know exactly how, but be sure, there is a way.  I believe you can use LaTeX to do this.  It is some kind of software that is made for preparing technical documents.Their website is www.latex-project.org, if you would like to look into that.  I have not used it, but I hear there is a learning curve, but I belive it could probably do what you need.  There may be other ways as well that I'm not aware of.  Also I wonder if you could just use the textbook and whatever workbook may come with it, that way the students would already have that and just look at that as you talk about the problems in the book.  
As for reading or editing math, LaTeX may help with this... I'm not sure.  I have also heard of things such as mathML which may be useful, but again not really sure, I know people do it though.  
As far as being able to read the textbooks, Learning Ally and Bookshare have a lot of high school and college audio books.  These audio books may be found elsewhere as well.  If the book you need is not available I believe you can request one be made.  However, I am not sure how that process works or how long it takes.  Or perhaps your employer can make an audio book for you, or you could hire someone to read and record the book.  Also using a reader may be helpful with this.  
I think a reader may be necessary for grading homework although I guess it might depend on how the homework is presented.  A lot of people use readers at their jobs.
There is a talking graphing calculator.  It is the talking TI-84 from the American Printing House for the Blind (APH).  I have one, I use it a lot, it does everything a non-talking graphing calculator would do.  You might even be able to do math with the calculator in front of the class and project the screen of the calculator onto the big screen using a document camera or something like that, so that the students could be looking at that.  
Personally I would highly recommendlearning and/or working on braille and nemeth code.  I think these could be very useful to you.  Often people do not want to read braille much because they are so slow, but they cannot get fast if they don't read braille.
If you learned or practiced these things I think the possibilitiesof what you could do would be much expanded.  Nemeth code is not that hard to learn if you really want to do it.  
Ultimately I see no reason at all why you should not be able to get a job teaching math.  It sounds like you would do a good job at it.  The key is to think creatively. Obviously you will not be teaching in the same you that sighted teachers would teach; but that becomes totally irrelevant when you can come up with creative ideas of how to do things.  
Hope something I suggested was helpful.  
Good luck to you.

Anna E Givens

> On Jul 16, 2015, at 4:40 PM, David Moore via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi All.
> My name is David Moore from Columbus, Ohio.  I received my masters
> degree at Ohio State in mathematics education  I also received a BS in
> mathematics.  Now, I do some tutoring.  I tutor sighted college
> students one on one in Calculus and other higher concepts.  With one
> on one tutoring, I have the student read the problem to me and I tell
> him or her exactly what to right down as I do the problem in my head.
> I can explain in words all math concepts that fit students' learning
> needs.  My one on one students say I explain the concepts in a way
> that helps them understand what they could not for years.  I learned
> math by listening to tapes and by reading my texts with the Optacon.
> I know what all the symbols look like in print, because of the
> Optacon.  This leads to the help I would grately appreciate from all
> of you.
> I want to teach a classroom full of sighted students at the high
> school or small community level.  This has always been my dream.
> First of all, How do I type out my math lectures so the content will
> look to the students as though I wrote it on a board?  I use JAWS and
> Openbook. That technology, however, can't help me write or read math
> texts.  Next, How do I get JAWS to read the math content that I am
> typing into an editor so I can edit what I am typing just like in a
> word document? Next, How do I read math texts that the college or
> high school would use so I can prepare my lessons from the texts?  I
> want to be able to read the math material, write out a lecture that I
> would present to the students, and have a way to grade there work that
> they input.  I really need help from an experienced blind mathematics
> teacher who teaches the sighted.  I am a very slow Braille reader and
> know little Nemoth code.  I do all computations in my head and picture
> all graphs in my head because I once felt them with the optacon.  The
> problem is, I have no more optacon.  Rehab took it back years ago, and
> I have never looked into getting another one in years.  I have just
> done a little bit of this one on one tutoring where I just tell the
> student what to right down and explain all in words as long as they
> need me to.  I didn't know how this technique would work in front of
> an entire class with nothing for the sighted students to look at.  In
> an Interview, I don't know how it would go if I said that I would just
> stand in front of the class and tell them what to write down with no
> representation for them to look at.  Also, I heard that much math is
> done on graphing calculators compared to when I was in school in the
> 1980s.  How would I access graphing calculators that students would
> use to do their homework on?  With my few one on one students, I just
> show them how the graphs look with my finger while they play around
> with their calculators to get something that looks like what I am
> drawing with my finger.  When I try writing print on paper or board,
> it goes all over the place.  I can picture the print in my head, but I
> have trouble writing it in any kind of straight line.  I would so much
> appreciate any help or suggestions you have for me to obtain that
> teaching job at a high school or small community college and how I
> could do all that is needed with assistive technology. Thank you so
> much in advance.
> 
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