[NABS-L] Calculus course as a blind student

[Emily Schlenker]

Hi. I just completed my first semester of calculus. I relied heavily on braille and the use of NVDA with math player and math ML to read Microsoft Word documents. I took my quizzes in braille and went over them with my instructor so that she could grade my answers and my work. What textbook are you using? I would be happy to share my materials with you. They are in braille and done on swell paper for the tactile graphs. They are not perfect, but they are very good. I absolutely loved Calc, and I thrived. I did have a rough start, though, so don’t get discouraged. Braille was absolutely essential, and I used a Perkins Brailer writer all semester.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 21, 2020, at 11:25 PM, Seyoon Choi via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hey all,
> 
> For the sake of urgency as I’m sending this message, I will jump into some of the questions I have right away. How many of you have successfully navigated and completed either a survey of calculus or calculus course? For any course materials involving complex graphing, how did you navigate this? what did you do for taking exams and quizzes? Is there a possibility similar to a lab assistant for disability/access office to perhaps seek a student for a blind student to be paired with to help walk through the visual elements of the math course? What is the typical procedure for that? 
> 
> Now for the background as to why I’m asking these questions.
> I’m currently a Human Resource major within the St. Louis University business school. Due to my ACT math score placement I place higher to take survey of calculus course instead of college algebra 1200. The meeting with an instructor have brought up further questions and logistics as this instructor have never once had a blind student in the past. The course will consist of using Excel heavily to manipulate data and precise graphing of derivatives and complex functions. While disability services and I don’t feel a need for someone such as myself to take such a rigorous level of math as a Human Resource major, the situation as of now from the instructor’s perspective are full of uncertainties and whether me plunging in this course is worth going forward and risk possibly having lots more difficulties. I know business students typically take statistics course although here they consider this as an elective instead of general ed course to satisfy the math requirement which again I find frustrating. All this is not only new to me, complex excel stuff in particular nor knowing whether     a math problem can be read by screen-readers. I didn’t have a clear answer for my instructor on these matter. 
> So with all these uncertainties as mentioned, if anyone has any tips or answers to the questions that I’ve asked above please let me know. Apologies for the lengthy email and so many questions.
> 
> Regards
> Seyoon 
> 
> Seyoon Choi
> Leadership in Human Resource management
> Undergraduate Research Assistant - Parks College of Engineering, Aviation & Technology
> blindinsider1 at gmail.com
> (314) 650-8306
> 
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