[nabs-l] Statistics course

Sun Jan 6 18:46:57 UTC 2013

hello there,

As arielle has stated, communicate with your professor as number one, and use the office as plan b. I suggest you schedule an appointment with  him, and tell him exactly what your e-mail just said to us.
open yourself as much as you can, and if he is confused, then you two, together, may approach the disabilities office.
This way, you are not asking the professor to do your work for you and speak to the office as i have seen some lazy people do in the past, but you are empowering the professor over the office, and making you the center of your education.

Let us know what ever you may need and i am sure someone will be glad to help.

mauricio
On Jan 6, 2013, at 1:39 PM, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> I have been in contact with my stats professor for several weeks now.
> He's married to the director of student learning services and told me
> the disabilities office likes to refer their students to him, so he's
> used to making accomodations based on individual needs.  He sounds
> like a really nice guy, and he's already given me permission to do
> things like write text descriptions of graphs rather than sit down
> with a cork board, thumb tacks, and tactile graph paper like I had to
> do in high school math.  He also said that for him grading on concept
> is more important than visual representation, so I think he'd be in
> favor of taking the conceptual approach Mauricio suggested even with
> the calculator.
> 
> I know they mean well, but I think my disabilities office just feels
> uncomfortable.  They started working on my math book in September and
> had me pick out my professor way before scheduling so they could talk
> to him.  A graphing calculator is listed as one of the course
> materials and supposedly they have talked with my professor about what
> functions he needs the calculators to do, but I'm wondering if he
> could tell me manual methods of handling the equasions the
> BrailleSense doesn't cover like some of my high school teachers did.
> In that case, I could use the BrailleSense as much as possible and
> cross the mental math bridges as they come without anyone else's
> assistance.
> 
> Part of the issue is that they don't have someone on site who can
> transcribe braille into print.  I would be most comfortable doing what
> I know, even if using a brailler may seem a little stone-age.  I would
> also rather have my equasions in braille rather than read to me
> through math player because as Arielle said it would give me direct
> interaction with the equasion, and honestly I'll probably end up
> dictating what the computer says anyway because I've always done math
> with hard copy braille.  I'm willing to make consessions like writing
> my math on the computer and using math player because there is no
> reliable way for someone to accurately produce Nemeth and transcribe
> it into print, but some of these other issues are just making me
> uncomfortable and worried as they stand.  Hopefully I can get some
> more positive answers later this week.
> 
> Thanks all,
> 
> On 1/6/13, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Kaiti,
>> First of all, your disability services office should not be telling
>> you what accommodations to use for any of your courses. They can make
>> suggestions, but ultimately it is between you and your professor to
>> decide what accommodations you will use. If they are trying to order
>> you to use a certain set of accommodations, they are overstepping
>> their boundaries.
>> Second, have you talked to your professor about what is actually
>> required for the class? I ask this because I am skeptical that you
>> will actually need a graphing calculator. In psychology stats courses,
>> at least, the most complicated mathematical operation required is a
>> square root, which I'm sure your Braille Sense can handle. I can't
>> imagine what calculations would be required that your Braille Sense
>> can't do. Working on your Braille Sense gives you much more
>> independent access than does working with a reader, and is much better
>> for your learning in my opinion, since you are actually interacting
>> with the problems yourself.
>> I'll write more later when I have more time, but please, please
>> communicate directly with your professor and don't worry about what
>> your disability office is saying. You don't need to do anything they
>> suggest that you aren't comfortable with and you alone know how you
>> learn best.
>> Arielle
>> 
>> On 1/6/13, Bridget Walker <bridgetawalker13 at aol.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> i understand how you are feeling I do not believe that you should be
>>> expected to transcribe all of you work I have played that game and it is
>>> not
>>> practical. i also completely agree that you should not have to dictate
>>> what
>>> you want to put in to the calculator. Furthermore, I have a limited
>>> background in the BrailleSense meaning i know it has a calculator however,
>>> I
>>> do not know how far you can o with it. That being said I would be highly
>>> annoyed with your disabilities office. It sounds to me like they are
>>> playing
>>> assistive technology specialist and failing. Your college should be able
>>> o
>>> find a way to get you work transcribed. I attend Dominican College and
>>> they
>>> help me with transcription all the time. I am still looking in to this
>>> because it is everywhere and so may people are faced with the challengers
>>> of
>>> college math. Let me see what other ideas I can come up with. I hope mor
>>> ideas come through.
>>> 
>>> Bridget
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>> 
>>> On Jan 6, 2013, at 11:58 AM, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Bridget,
>>>> 
>>>> I have a question based on your last email.  I too am starting my
>>>> stats course next week and am a little worried about my assignments
>>>> and such.  I had a really old-school braille instructor who taught me
>>>> to use a Perkins brailler all through high school math, but now my
>>>> disability services people want me to learn math player and do
>>>> everything on the computer, which is a little intimidating simply
>>>> because I've never used the computer for math before.  They want me to
>>>> do this though since there is no practical way to translate the
>>>> braille, as we don't have a transcriber or anyone sighted who could
>>>> convert my answers.  They also want me to sit with someone and tell
>>>> them which buttons to push every time we use a graphing calculator.  I
>>>> suggested checking out the stats functions in the BrailleSense
>>>> calculator as well as AGC, but they claim it doesn't have all the
>>>> functions my professor wants us to use.  Like the computer, I'm not
>>>> familiar with print calculators, obviously since I've never used one.
>>>> I know they have random buttons like ABC and such, but I don't know
>>>> what those do and wouldn't know when to use them.  I'm not really
>>>> comfortable going into stats using these things I've never used
>>>> before.  Would you, or anyone else, have other suggestions?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 1/6/13, Bridget Walker <bridgetawalker13 at aol.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi Justin,
>>>>> During my first year of college I took college algebra and I have a
>>>>> friend
>>>>> who took psychology statistics last year. We are both Braille readers.
>>>>> I
>>>>> found it was helpful to take notes in my preferred format. Any
>>>>> assignments
>>>>> that I needed to turn in I had a scribe for as did she. We both took
>>>>> advantage of the tutoring  center and all of our accommodations.  My
>>>>> best
>>>>> advice would be speak to your professor often, if you need help along
>>>>> the
>>>>> way tutoring and direct instruction from the professor are a good way
>>>>> to
>>>>> go.
>>>>> I never had a problem with accommodations in any of my math or science
>>>>> courses and I'm sure you will be fine.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best of luck
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bridget
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Jan 2, 2013, at 6:58 PM, Justin Young <jty727 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hi All!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hope the New Year is treating you all well!  I have to take a
>>>>>> Statistics course and haven't gone through this course before.  I was
>>>>>> wondering if any could give any pointers on how they survived the
>>>>>> course?  Any suggestions/advice would be much appreciated!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Justin
>>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Kaiti
>>>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Kaiti
> 
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