Abstract
This study presents a math tutoring platform designed to teach sighted and blind students using audio-tactile graphics in an inclusive educational setting. The platform` provides alternative means for presenting information typically included as images in mathematical exercises via tablets and an audio-touch interface. The research used a prepared set of 40 exercises on the properties of geometric figures, and it covered 5 inclusive classrooms at the primary school level during one semester of the school year. The proposed evaluation method of the platform considered several factors: students’ learning progress (stored using the knowledge vector and error vector mechanisms), teacher-student and student-student communication, a detailed assessment of the student’s way of solving the exercise via a module used by the teacher, and the possibility of group work. The results indicate that the developed method and accompanying tools support group work and increase the independence of blind students in the process of learning mathematics. The platform also increases communication with and detailed ongoing assessment of the student’s progress by the teacher.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Miyauchi, H.: A systematic review on inclusive education of students with visual impairment. Educ. Sci. 10, 346 (2020)
Lintangsari, A.P., Emaliana, I.: Inclusive education services for the blind: values, roles, and challenges of university EFL teachers. Int. J. Eval. Res. Educ. 9, 439–447 (2020)
Asamoah, E., Ofori-Dua, K., Cudjoe, E., Abdullah, A., Nyarko, J.A.: Inclusive education: perception of visually impaired students students without disability, and teachers in ghana. SAGE Open 8, 1–11 (2018)
Wehmeyer, M.L., Shogren, K.A., Kurth, J.: The state of inclusion with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States. J. Policy Pract. Intellect. Disabil. 18, 36–43 (2021)
Opertti, R., Brady, J.: Developing inclusive teachers from an inclusive curricular perspective. Prospects 41(3), 459–472 (2011)
Roos, H.: Inclusion in mathematics education: an ideology, a way of teaching, or both? Educ. Stud. Math. 100, 25–41 (2019)
European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education. https://www.european-agency.org/activities/data
Oyebanji, M.S., Idiong, U.S.: Challenges of teaching mathematics to students with visual impairment. Malikussaleh J. Math. Learn. (MJML) 4(1), 1 (2021)
Lahav, O., Hagab, N., El Kader, S.A., Levy, S.T., Talis, V.: Listen to the models: sonified learning models for people who are blind. Comput. Educ. 127, 141–153 (2018)
Bishop, V.E., Barraga, N.C.: Teaching Visually Impaired Children. Charles C Thomas Publisher (2004)
Amedi, A., Raz, N., Pianka, P., Malach, R., Zohary, E.: Early “visual” cortex activation correlates with superior verbal memory performance in the blind. Nat. Neurosci. 6, 758–766 (2003)
Klingenberg, O.G., Holkesvik, A.H., Augestad, L.B.: Research evidence for mathematics education for students with visual impairment: a systematic review. Cogent Educ. 6, 1626322 (2019)
Regec, V.: Mathematics in inclusive education of blind students in secondary schools in the czech republic. Procedia-Soc. Behav. Sci. 174, 3933–3939 (2015)
Moreno-Guerrero, A.J., Aznar-Díaz, I., Cáceres-Reche, P., Alonso-García, S.: E-learning in the teaching of mathematics: an educational experience in adult high school. Mathematics 8, 840 (2020)
De Prado, J.E.L., Gago, A.R.A., López, M.E.: Theorical review of the teaching of mathematics in student with visual functional diversity. In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 201–208 (2019)
Janu, A., Retnawati, H.: Developing audio tactile for visually impaired students. Int. J. New Trends Educ. Their Implic. 6, 18–30 (2015)
Papadopoulos, K., Barouti, M., Charitakis, K.: A university indoors audio-tactile mobility aid for individuals with blindness BT-computers helping people with special needs. In: Presented at the (2014)
Griffin, E., Picinali, L., Scase, M.: The effectiveness of an interactive audio‐tactile map for the process of cognitive mapping and recall among people with visual impairments. Brain Behav. 10 (2020)
Mikułowski, D., Brzostek-Pawłowska, J.: Multi-sensual augmented reality in interactive accessible math tutoring system for flipped classroom. Intell. Tutoring Syst. 12149, 1 (2020)
Bier, A., Sroczyński, Z.: Rule based intelligent system verbalizing mathematical notation. Multimed. Tools Appl. 78, 28089–28110 (2019)
Salamonczyk, A., Brzostek-Pawlowska, J.: Translation of MathML formulas to polish text, example applications in teaching the blind. In: 2015 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Cybernetics (CYBCONF), pp. 240–244 (2015)
Fichten, C.S., Asuncion, J.V., Barile, M., Ferraro, V., Wolforth, J.: Accessibility of e-learning and computer and information technologies for students with visual impairments in postsecondary education. J. Vis. Impair. Blind. 103, 543–557 (2009)
Maćkowski, M., Brzoza, P., Żabka, M., Spinczyk, D.: Multimedia platform for mathematics’ interactive learning accessible to blind people. Multimed. Tools Appl. 77, 6191–6208 (2018)
Gardner, J.A., Bulatov, V.: Scientific diagrams made easy with IVEOTM. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including Subser. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence Lecture Notes Bioinformatics). 4061 LNCS, 1243–1250 (2006)
Minhat, M., Abdullah, N.L., Idrus, R., Keikhosrokiani, P.: TacTalk: talking tactile map for the visually impaired. In: ICIT 2017 - 8th International Conference Information Technology Proceedings, 475–481 (2017)
Melfi, G., Müller, K., Schwarz, T., Jaworek, G., Stiefelhagen, R.: Understanding what you feel: a mobile audio-tactile system for graphics used at schools with students with visual impairment. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings (2020)
Shoaib, M., Khan, S., Fitzpatrick, D., Pitt, I.: A mobile e-learning application for enhancement of basic mathematical skills in visually impaired children. Universal Access Information Society 1–11 (2023)
Klingenberg, O.G., Holkesvik, A.H., Augestad, L.B.: Digital learning in mathematics for students with severe visual impairment: a systematic review. Br. J. Vis. Impair. 38, 38–57 (2020)
Maćkowski, M., Brzoza, P., Kawulok, M., Knura, T.: Mobile e-learning Platform for Audio-Tactile Graphics Presentation. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G., Mavrou, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Penáz, P. (eds.) Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 82–91. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2022)
Maćkowski, M., Brzoza, P., Kawulok, M., Meisel, R., Spinczyk, D.: Multimodal presentation of interactive audio-tactile graphics supporting the perception of visual information by blind people. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (2022)
Maćkowski, M., Brzoza, P.: Accessible tutoring platform using audio-tactile graphics adapted for visually impaired people. Sensors 22(22), 8753 (2022)
Spinczyk, D., Maćkowski, M., Kempa, W., Rojewska, K.: Factors influencing the process of learning mathematics among visually impaired and blind people. Comput. Biol. Med. 104, 1–9 (2019)
Maćkowski, M., Żabka, M., Kempa, W., Rojewska, K., Spinczyk, D.: Computer aided math learning as a tool to assess and increase motivation in learning math by visually impaired students. Disabil. Rehabil. Assist. Technol. 17, 559–569 (2020)
Guidelines and Standards for Tactile Graphics. http://www.brailleauthority.org/tg/. Last accessed 06 Nov 2022
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Maćkowski, M., Kawulok, M., Brzoza, P., Spinczyk, D. (2023). Method and Tools to Supporting Math Learning in Inclusive Education of Blind Students. In: Frasson, C., Mylonas, P., Troussas, C. (eds) Augmented Intelligence and Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13891. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32883-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32883-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-32882-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-32883-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)