[nabs-l] Extremely frustrated with microbiology class

[Ashley Bramlett]

Jewel,
This sounds tough. Is your professor restricting the questions and 
discussion your lab assistant can tell you?
It seems to me that any visual info including shape, size, and color would 
be fine questions for your assistant because sighted people get this info by 
looking at it. This aids them in identifying the organisms. If they restrict 
your access, this sounds discriminatory.

I'd first clarify what you can ask your assistant. Then explain why the 
tactile diagram is insufficient. Find an alternative.
Could you make a diagram with your assistant from things you bring like wiki 
sticks, hard candy, and string?
Another alternative is to do something in lou of the visual part as long as 
this isn't your major.
If it’s a major course, this issue would arise again and you couldn't get 
out of this part for many classes.
I'm thinking you could answer questions about cells. Your professor could 
name cells instead of showing you a visual image under the microscope.
Then you could describe the cells or something like that. This is anothe r 
fair way to demonstrate your knowledge it seems to me.
I know most federationists aren't big on alternative assignments or changing 
the work, but this seems more fair to me. I'm not into science. When I took 
general biology, however, my professor asked me questions on my exam instead 
of me looking at pictures. Other students looked at a picture and were asked 
to identify a certain part such as a cell part, a flower part, or muscles of 
the body. Mine were multiple choice questions as well, just without 
pictures. The question named the organism in the question.
It asked me about that subject in the question. So I didn't have to identify 
any organisms via pictures or a microscope.

I also still had the same number of questions as other students; mine were 
just worded differently since I did not label pictures.

HTH,
Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Jewel
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2012 6:48 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: [nabs-l] Extremely frustrated with microbiology class

I'm taking a class in microbiology that I need for my degree program,
and one of the things I need to do for the midterm lab praticle is
identify cells under the microscope. The thing is, my lab assistant is
not allowed to give an in-depth description of the cells, nor can I
ask him questions like "What colour is it?"...I have to identify the
cell by looking at a tactile image that I can't understand because the
image is not of good enough quality for a tactile image to work, and
I'm having trouble getting my professor to understand my problem. She
says I should be able to recognize the cell based on the tactile image
and specific questions to my lab assistant, but I can't ask him "What
colour is this blob here?" or anything. I am not sure what kind of
questions I *can* ask him, nor am I sure how I am going to identify
cells based on images that are just blobs and dots to me. Please, can
someone give me any ideas or suggestions? This has me frustrated to
tears, beause I'm afraid I'm going to fail the lab practicle because I
don't have access to the same materials as everyone else. Help please!
~Jewel

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