[Social-sciences-list] [BlindAcademics] Math Teaching Techniques

Tue Nov 13 01:02:55 UTC 2012

Hi Audrey,
I'm in the psychology department, and undergrad students are lining up
out the door wanting to be research assistants since research
experience is now almost a prerequisite for getting into grad school.
We interview them and take a few who have high GPA's and are highly
motivated. They are not paid, but they receive credit for an
independent study course in exchange for a certain number of volunteer
hours in the lab, attending educational lab meetings, and completing a
short reflective paper at the end of the term. Typical RA duties are
running experiments and entering data. I also delegate reader
responsibilities such as helping with formatting to my RA's and it
does not take up much of their time compared to the time they put in
doing other things for all the graduate students and faculty.
What department are you in and does your advisor or mentor have
volunteer or paid RA's?
Best,
Arielle

On 11/12/12, T. Audrey Medina <tmm326 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Arielle,
>
> Thanks for your message.  It's just helpful to know that I will be able to
> format text and tables with confidence (right now, JAWS is not reading font
> and format information correctly, which I don't understand).  Would you
> also
> mind sharing who pays for your RAs?  I'm moving into dissertation research,
> and I think having an RA or two could save me a lot of time.
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> Audrey
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Social-sciences-list [mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> On Behalf Of Arielle Silverman
> Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 7:03 PM
> To: Blind Social Scientists List
> Subject: Re: [Social-sciences-list] [BlindAcademics] Math Teaching
> Techniques
>
> I can create a PowerPoint presentation independently if it's  just
> text slides and tables. However, if there are any graphs or pictures I
> want to show in the presentation, then I usually get a sighted
> research  assistant to help. Although I can probably learn to do it
> myself, I believe it would still take me a lot longer to do it than
> would a competent research assistant and even if I did it myself, I
> would still want someone sighted to check it over. Honestly, it
> doesn't take my  RA's much longer to put the pictures and graphs  in
> than it does for  them to check the whole thing over for visual
> consistency, etc. so I'd rather just take advantage of  their
> availability to do  it.
> Best,
> Arielle
>
> On 11/11/12, T. Audrey Medina <tmm326 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I love that PowerPoint was mentioned so much in your messages.  I am
>> still
>> pretty new to using PowerPoint successfully, and I'm curious whether any
> of
>> you have gotten to the point where you can create professional-looking
>> presentations without very much or any sighted assistance.  Thanks very
>> much.
>>
>> Audrey
>>
>> P.S.: I love the idea of writing notes in the same color as the
> background!
>> I am definitely going to start doing that.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Social-sciences-list
> [mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org]
>> On Behalf Of Arielle Silverman
>> Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 12:19 PM
>> To: Blind Social Scientists List
>> Cc: Blind Academics Discussion List; blindmath
>> Subject: Re: [Social-sciences-list] [BlindAcademics] Math Teaching
>> Techniques
>>
>> Thanks everyone for the helpful teaching suggestions. Right now my
>> questions are still pretty abstract since I don't even know if I want
>> a  position that includes teaching. However, it's good to know that
>> several blind people have successfully handled these  issues in case
>> questions come up in a job interview. If I do get a teaching position,
>> then I will probably have more specific questions.
>> I would plan to use PowerPoint a lot. One issue is that I have been
>> totally blind since birth, and can barely sign my own name, hence I
>> would not trust myself to draw anything and  expect it to be of
>> educational value to others.
>> I like the  idea of making the classes interactive, but I am curious
>> how easy this is to do in a lecture of 350 students?
>> Best,
>> Arielle
>>
>> On 11/9/12, Cary Supalo <cas380 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Arielle,
>>> I use Power Point slides for lots of my lectures. Further, book
>>> publishers make available to teachers pre-drawn slides. I work with a
>>> reader to select the ones I want to use from the database the
>>> publisher provides. I can then supplement these slides with other
>>> ones I have made.
>>> I then use hard copy Braille for the text on the slides. I run the
>>> presentation using a text-to-speech screen reader. I want to try
>>> using the ViewPlus Iveo with tactile drawings of phase diagrams and
>>> other 2d visuals. I will have to add text descriptions to the
>>> graphics which are already Braille labeled of additional details to
>>> be mentioned. I have not done this yet, but this is something I
>>> intend to try before to long.
>>> Hope this helps.
>>> Cary
>>> At 08:42 PM 11/8/2012, Arielle Silverman wrote:
>>>>Hi all,
>>>>I was just curious whether any of you have experience teaching
>>>>quantitative subjects at the college level (i.e. math, chemistry,
>>>>statistics etc.) and if so, could you share a little bit about any
>>>>alternative methods you use for teaching sighted students? As a
>>>>soon-to-be psychology Ph.D. I am qualified to teach statistics
>>>>courses, but I've observed that at least at the introductory level, a
>>>>lot of the content is traditionally presented in a very visual way,
>>>>i.e. with histograms, emphasis on the graphical properties of
>>>>probability distributions, etc. I didn't learn that way myself and so
>>>>I'm a little lost as to how I would present this kind of material in a
>>>>way that is accessible to sighted students. How have you handled these
>>>>kinds of issues?
>>>>Best,
>>>>Arielle
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>BlindAcademics mailing list
>>>>BlindAcademics at mailman.rice.edu
>>>>https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/blindacademics
>>>
>>>
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