Digital math best practices guideline – Perkins School for the Blind

Are you supporting your student in academic math classes? Do you need resources to help guide you as you plan for your student’s current and future math needs? General education math teachers follow their state-wide math guidelines and have access to math curriculums and resources. Students who are blind or low vision must also follow these same guidelines, but where are the curriculums and resources for TSVIs to use when creating a plan on what tech should be used and what tech skills need to be taught in order to access digital math?

Formed in August 2023, the Digital Math Team is a national group of educators led by Leslie Thatcher, Director of Program Development and Strategies, Perkins School for the Blind. The goal is to support TSVIs who are working with blind and low vision students to access and complete digital math assignments alongside their peers. This team has been tackling the challenging issues and critical gaps blind and low vision students and TSVIs are facing with the transition to digital math resources.

After research and focus groups, it became apparent that the first need is to draft a Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines to be used to help build a more consistent, universal math plan for BLV students and that can be implemented across the U.S. A simple document that states what high and low tech should be taught in what grade. Sounds easy, right? But, there are many impacting factors to consider!

Impacting Factors

Accessibility of apps and digital math content used by the school
Availability of technology
Skills of the TSVI and student
Learning needs and preferences
Age of the student

Keep in mind that this is the first stab to create draft digital math guidelines. The Digital Math Team recently shared the current draft of the Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines at the International AER Conference, in July 2024 and asked for feedback from the audience. Feedback included that students could start on all devices earlier than what was listed in the current guidelines. What do you think?

Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines

Pre-K – Kindergarten

Using manipulatives for initial concept development and transitioning to apps on a tablet
Using an abacus to develop concept development and computational skills
Learning gestures and tech-related concepts
Learning beginning refreshable braille display commands
Learning beginning Bluetooth keyboard navigation/interaction commands
Introducing the keyboard as early as kindergarten (arrow keys, enter, backspace, etc.) so students can use applications such as MathFlash
Accessing math-related content and concepts through simple gamified apps
Creating hard copy bar graphs and being exposed to some digital bar graphs in kindergarten

Early Elementary

Moving toward notetakers or building strong refreshable braille display skills
Working on beginning keyboarding skills through a typing program by second grade
Using the computer for more tasks as early as second grade

Later Elementary

Reading and creating simple digital bar graphs in 3^rd grade (Use a hard copy first!)
Independently receiving assignments from a teacher, completing them, and returning assignments to a teacher both within and/or outside of a learning management platform
Embossing or printing and fusing (e.g., PIAF) math materials, when needed
Using notetakers and/or computers with refreshable braille displays on a consistent basis for schoolwork and notes

Middle School

Increasing computer skills and web navigation
Using calculators to solve problems in 6th grade
- Students should know math facts before using a calculator
Learning how to use talking calculators (e.g., Orion TI-30XS or Orion TI-84 Plus), notetaker calculators, or web-based calculators (e.g., Desmos)
Using Excel to create and access bar graphs and circle graphs, including sending charts and graphs to an embosser or printer and fuser (e.g., PIAF)
Using graphing calculators to create graphs on the coordinate plane as early as 8^th grade (Use a hard copy first!)
Using equation editors to write equations and/or complete math assignments
Using conversion tools to make inaccessible math documents accessible (e.g. OCR applications that can handle math expressions such as Mathkicker.ai; not all OCR applications can handle math expressions)

High School

Being independent is the goal!
Using a variety of tools and technology from low tech (e.g., braillewriter) to high tech, so that when one tool fails, there is a back-up plan in place (Lots of tools in the toolbox)
Knowing what the best tool is to use for the task

Don’t Forget!

It is important to promote strong TECH skills early, so students can become more independent.
There is a need for manipulatives when students are first learning a concept or struggling with a concept.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so there is still a need for tactile graphics when learning, teaching or reinforcing math skills.
There is still a need for the Perkins braillewriter when solving certain types of problems that involve multiple steps throughout all grade levels. The use of the braillewriter also allows the student to see the “big picture”, and is still very much needed until multi-line braille displays become affordable and available to all.

Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines document

Feedback

The Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines is a fluid document, meaning that it will change with additional feedback from TSVIs and as technology evolves. What else should be included? Do you agree with the timelines? Please support this effort by providing feedback about the document to [email protected].

Resources

The Digital Math Best Practices Guidelines document is just the beginning! The Digital Math Team is developing a number of exciting documents and resources for TSVIs. Please see the updated versions of these documents housed in these two posts:

By Diane Brauner

Back to Paths to Technology’s Home page