Sensory Substitution, Key to Inclusive Learning

Visually impaired students, in primary education, encounter unique challenges while learning creative skills, exploring artistic expression and developing problem-solving skills, because so much instructional content is delivered visually. Sensory substitution—an approach that replaces visual information with feedback from other intact senses like touch, sound, taste or smell—provides an opportunity to address those challenges. Through the use of sensory substitution, this thesis proposes concrete ways to capitalize on the enhanced abilities of visually impaired primary school students. The research outcome of this thesis is a system of templates that puts these enhanced abilities to work for visually impaired students, to support them while they learn creative skills and practice problem-solving in a classroom setting. Each template contains a lesson that can be learned by using the process of paper quilling. The templates work equally well for sighted and visually impaired students, since all will be able to understand the lesson by using the sense of touch, as they learn by making

Teachers\u27 Of Students With Visual Impairments Perceptions And Experiences Of Teaching The Expanded Core Curriculum

The purpose of the qualitative research study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of teachers of students with visual impairments (TSVIs) in the state of North Dakota regarding the expanded core curriculum (ECC). This study included transcribed interviews from six TSVIs who taught in grades K-12. The National Agenda for the Education of Children and Youths with Visual Impairments, Including Those with Multiple Disabilities was used to frame this study. Phenomenological methods were used to analyze the interviews into codes, categories, themes, and an assertion. Following were the seven themes supported by the data collected: 1. Teachers of students with visual impairments (TSVIs) reported that the responsibility of educating students with visual impairments is “huge”; therefore, it takes a village (i.e., North Dakota Vision Services/School for the Blind [NDVS/SB] professionals, teams, and others) to ensure the unique needs of students with visual impairments are met. 2. TSVIs emphasized the importance of systematic and purposeful instruction, and ongoing and systematic checks for understanding. 3. TSVIs perceived instructors at the NDVS/SB as experts in teaching the expanded core curriculum. 4. TSVIs perceived they were primarily responsible for teaching compensatory skills and use of assistive technology. 5. TSVIs perceived the parents of students with visual impairments and the NDVS/SB were primarily responsible for teaching independent living skills of the expanded core curriculum (ECC). 6. TSVIs perceived academic curriculum takes precedence over the expanded core curriculum. 7. Limited time and limited access prohibit TSVIs from providing consistent, and systematic, instruction of the expanded core curriculum within their respective school districts. These seven themes converged into the following assertion: Educating students with visual impairments in the state of North Dakota requires an integrative approach in which academic curriculum and expanded core curriculum are addressed through collaborative efforts among all stakeholders and service providers. In summary, educating students with visual impairments is an enormous task that no one person can accomplish alone. It behooves stakeholders, associated with vision impairments, to work together to create models for teaching the expanded core curriculum that ensure equity of services throughout the state

AudioFunctions.web: Multimodal Exploration of Mathematical Function Graphs

We present AudioFunctions.web, a web app that uses sonifcation, earcons and speech synthesis to enable blind people to explore mathematical function graphs. The system is designed for personalized access through different interfaces (touchscreen, keyboard, touchpad and mouse) on both mobile and traditional devices, in order to better adapt to different user abilities and preferences. It is also publicly available as a web service and can be directly accessed from the teaching material through a hypertext link. An experimental evaluation with 13 visually impaired participants highlights that, while the usability of all the presented interaction modalities is high, users with different abilities prefer different interfaces to interact with the system. It is also shown that users with higher level of mathematical education are capable of better adapting to interaction modalities considered more diffcult by others

Implementing Technology Enhanced Mathematical Instruction in an Algebra I Course to Increase Students’ Academic Achievement in Mathematics

In July 2015, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics established its position about the use of technology in teaching and learning mathematics. This important step forward opened a promise for many students and teachers that deserve the excellence of high-quality education in one of the most difficult educational subjects. In the 21st century, mathematics education can be one of the greatest recipients of all technological benefits reached by the most advanced societies of the earth. The purpose of this applied dissertation was to measure the effects in mathematics academic achievement of implementing technology-enhanced mathematical instruction to a group of seventh graders taking an accelerated course of algebra I. The problem of the study was that a large number of students were not achieving proficiency levels in fundamental algebra benchmarks such as algebra modeling, function modeling and statistics, and number system. The study included one experimental group, who received mathematics instruction using technology-enhanced mathematical instruction (TEMI), and a control group, who did not receive TEMI instruction. Both groups were assessed at the beginning of the experiment with a pre-test and the end of the study with a post-test. Additionally, a motivation survey about the use of technology during mathematics instruction was given to the experimental group at the end of the study

A Team Approach to Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) in Schools

Cortical visual impairment (CVI) is presently the fastest growing cause of visual impairment in children. The influx of children with CVI entering school districts requires Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams to gain expertise about CVI and learn best practices to work with these children. CVI experts agree that a collaborative transdisciplinary team can best serve the complex needs of the children. Written by an occupational therapist, this project designs a CVI manual, A Team Approach to CVI in Schools, which reviews current literature and provides support for client centered, occupational based education for children with CVI. The literature review points to a shortage of research-based guidance for working with children with CVI. Although recent CVI literature offers new strategies for improving the vision of children with CV, this CVI manual fills the need for a school guide that focuses on the children\u27s broad school participation by addressing the transactional components of child, context, occupation, and teacher/therapist in designing effective school programs. The manual strives to build capacity of school IEP teams to work collaboratively and effectively with children with CVI by increasing the teams\u27 knowledge base about CVI and helping the children participate fully in school. Best practices in education for children with CVI are presented in the areas of school evaluation, programming, and student engagement in meaningful activities within daily routines

Multisensory learning in adaptive interactive systems

The main purpose of my work is to investigate multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration in the design and development of adaptive user interfaces for educational purposes. To this aim, starting from renewed understanding from neuroscience and cognitive science on multisensory perceptual learning and sensory integration, I developed a theoretical computational model for designing multimodal learning technologies that take into account these results. Main theoretical foundations of my research are multisensory perceptual learning theories and the research on sensory processing and integration, embodied cognition theories, computational models of non-verbal and emotion communication in full-body movement, and human-computer interaction models. Finally, a computational model was applied in two case studies, based on two EU ICT-H2020 Projects, "weDRAW" and "TELMI", on which I worked during the PhD

Perspectives on credit scoring and fair mortgage lending: article two

Credit scoring systems ; Mortgages

PRINT3D, a Service-Learning Project for Improving Visually Impaired Accessibility Through Educational 3D Printing

Well-executed service-learning projects are a high-value educational element. However, these projects commonly focus on overused topics and unbalanced executions which can produce the opposite effect to that desired when working with groups of people with functional diversity. PRINT3D is a service-learning project aimed at improving accessibility for people with visual disabilities while helping primary and secondary school students learn basic engineering skills through 3D design and printing. Under the support of the European Erasmus+ Programme, this project brought together nongovernmental organizations, teacher professional development centers, business enterprises, and educational centers to collaborate for two school years. The project activities aimed to promote empathy with visually impaired individuals, understand their accessibility needs, generate and prototype solutions, work collaboratively, and 3D design and print objects such as subway line plans, facility plans, signage, and artistic objects that are accessible to the visually impaired. The results of the project were increased motivation, social awareness, and technical skills, especially among students with a higher risk of dropping out of school