Insights from training a blind student in biological sciences

Higher education institutions have a constitutional obligation to provide reasonable accommodation to students with disabilities. Although the teaching and learning of students with blindness and low vision in STEM disciplines are well documented abroad, to date, there are no published studies in South Africa on successful teaching and learning strategies for students with blindness and low vision in STEM fields, specifically in science disciplines. Therefore, in this paper, we report on how teaching, learning, and assessment were adapted to make science disciplines accessible to John, a blind student enrolled in a biological sciences degree at a research-intensive university in South Africa. Several factors contributed towards the successful completion of John’s bachelor’s degree. These factors include the availability of tutors who committed a large amount of time to help John understand content presented in lectures, tutorials, and practical sessions; a well-resourced and effective Disability Unit; lecturers who ensured that John was well accommodated in lectures, tutorials, and practical sessions; and, finally, John’s commitment and dedication towards learning.Significance: This is the first study to report on successful teaching and learning strategies for a blind student in the natural sciences in the South African context. The study provides a guide that scholars, educators, university managers and policymakers can use to ensure that mathematics and science subjects are accessible to blind students and that teaching strategies allow them to perform to their potential

Exploring STEM Kit Diagrams for braille readers in inclusive classrooms

Diagrams appears in many school subjects but more prominent in science and mathematics taught in schools. Accessing these diagrams in an inclusive classroom has been identified to be problematic for blind students partly due to the teaching resources available and personnel type, support and sufficiency. Diagrams are mostly omitted by teachers leaving the blind person out in such classroom to access portion of education received by their peers. In many instances, questions with diagrams are treated as bonus for blind students in some countries which is not fair to them. This study explored the efficacy of STEM Kit diagrams on participation and inclusion of blind students in science lessons in two case schools in Nigeria. Data were collected through classroom observations and teacher and student interviews. The accessible diagrams in the STEM Kit were found to provide relevant solutions to problems militating against adequate accessibility of diagrams to blind students in inclusive classrooms

Application of Three-Dimensional Media of The Shape of The Earth's Surface for The Learning of Visually Impaired

Blind students cannot use their senses properly; they can learn by relying on their senses of touch and hearing. For this reason, it is necessary to have teaching media that depend on the importance of communication or hearing to recognize material on the shape of the Earth's surface. This research aims to increase the learning interest of blind students in the fabric of the Earth's surface in social science subjects. This research method is pre-experimental, with blind students being treated with 3D media and observing their responses. The application of 3D media in the form of the Earth's surface in learning for blind children involved eight students. It was implemented in three junior high schools in East Java, Indonesia. These schools include Special Schools in Bojonegoro, Surabaya, and Sidoarjo. The results of the application of 3D media show that using 3D learning media in the form of the Earth's surface in the teaching and learning process can generate new desires and interests, generate motivation, and stimulate learning activities, even bringing psychological influences on blind students. 3D learning media can also help improve students' understanding, present data excitingly and reliably, facilitate data retention, and obtain information about the shape of the Earth's surface

Constructing sonified haptic line graphs for the blind student: first steps

Line graphs stand as an established information visualisation and analysis technique taught at various levels of difficulty according to standard Mathematics curricula. It has been argued that blind individuals cannot use line graphs as a visualisation and analytic tool because they currently primarily exist in the visual medium. The research described in this paper aims at making line graphs accessible to blind students through auditory and haptic media. We describe (1) our design space for representing line graphs, (2) the technology we use to develop our prototypes and (3) the insights from our preliminary work

Brother, Can You Paradigm? Toward a Theory of Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Social Studies

Although research on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has accelerated in recent years, social studies educators have not generally been part of the conversation. This article explores why a theory of PCK for social studies has been so difficult to elaborate, focusing on the field’s inability to come to consensus on its aims and purposes and on a pervasive distrust of traditional academic disciplines and scholarship they produce. These factors have helped make the effective preparation of social studies teachers, something researchers studying PCK hope to improve, exceptionally difficult. This article proposes that if the field can resolve its relationship to the disciplines, a more coherent conceptualization of teacher education in social studies could come into focus. Such a reconceptualization could help position social studies teacher educators to contribute to the knowledge base on PCK, particularly with regard to the transformation of disciplinary content into school curriculum

East Berkshire College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 68/96 and 29/00)

Comprises two Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) inspection reports for the periods 1995-96 and 1999-200

IMPACT: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. Volume 2, Issue 1, Winter 2013

Impact: The Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning is a peer-reviewed, biannual online journal that publishes scholarly and creative non-fiction essays about the theory, practice and assessment of interdisciplinary education. Impact is produced by the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning at the College of General Studies, Boston University (www.bu.edu/cgs/citl)

The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America's Urban Schools

"Irreplaceables" are teachers who are so successful they are nearly impossible to replace, but who too often vanish from schools as the result of neglect and inattention.To identify and better understand the experience of these teachers, we started by studying 90,000 teachers across four large, geographically diverse urban school districts. We also examined student academic growth data or value-added results for approximately 20,000 of those teachers. While these measures cannot provide a complete picture of a teacher's performance or ability on their own -- and shouldn't be the only measure used in realworld teacher evaluations -- they are the most practical way to identify trends in a study of this scale, and research has demonstrated that they show a relationship to other performance measures, such as classroom observations.We used the data to identify teachers who performed exceptionally well (by helping students make much more academic progress than expected), and to see how their experiences and opinions about their work differed from other teachers' -- particularly teachers whose performance was exceptionally poor.So who are the Irreplaceables? They are, by any measure, our very best teachers. Across the districts we studied, about 20 percent of teachers fell into the category. On average, each year they help students learn two to three additional months' worth of math and reading compared with the average teacher, and five to six months more compared to low-performing teachers.Better test scores are just the beginning: Students whose teachers help them make these kinds of gains are more likely to go to college and earn higher salaries as adults, and they are less likely to become teenage parents.Teachers of this caliber not only get outstanding academic results, but also provide a more engaging learning experience for students. For example, when placed in the classroom of an Irreplaceable secondary math teacher, students are much more likely to say that their teacher cares, does not let them give up when things get difficult and makes learning enjoyable.Irreplaceables influence students for life, and their talents make them invaluable assets to their schools. The problem is, their schools don't seem to know it

Loughborough College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 22/97)

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record includes one of these reports

Do Gender Stereotypes Reduce Girls' Human Capital Outcomes? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Schools and teachers are often said to be a source of stereotypes that harm girls. This paper tests for the existence of gender stereotyping and discrimination by public high-school teachers in Israel. It uses a natural experiment based on blind and non-blind scores that students receive on matriculation exams in their senior year. Using data on test results in several subjects in the humanities and sciences, I found, contrary to expectations, that male students face discrimination in each subject. These biases widen the female male achievement gap because girls outperform boys in all subjects, except English, and at all levels of the curriculum. The bias is evident in all segments of the ability and performance distribution and is robust to various individual controls. Several explanations based on differential behavior between boys and girls are not supported empirically. However, the size of the bias is very sensitive to teachers' characteristics, suggesting that the bias against male students is the result of teachers', and not students', behavior.