bar graph with different colored columns and line graphs
Activity

Tips and Strategies to Make Statistics & Probability Accessible

Tips and strategies to make statistics and probability accessible to students who are blind or visually impaired

Students with visual impairments may face challenges when working on the Mathematics standards in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  As a response to this, Perkins School for the Blind convened a panel of experts to identify specific standards that would be a potential challenge to students who are blind or visually impaired, and then proposed ideas for materials, foundational skills, tips and strategies, and lesson ideas to help to address these challenges.

This post is part of a series about different parts of the Mathematical standards.

Topics:

What is a student likely to be working on in this area: 

What are the particular challenges for a student who has a visual impairment?   

Foundational Skills

These skills are listed in a general order of skills required by the student as they advance through the grades.

Materials

Tips and Strategies

Lesson Ideas

  1. Activities to gather data from students about preferences to discuss samples and statistics in general. 
  2. Internet activity:  Go to five websites and search for a pre-selected word on a page.  Make inferences about the probability that every website has that word.
  3. Start with classroom measurements.  Determine the mean of student heights.  Estimate heights of same age students.  Research accuracy on Internet.
  4. Internet activity:  Each group chooses two different music genres.  Use the Internet to determine which artists sell the most albums in each genre. 
  5. Group activities with two different textured items in paper bags.
  6. Write probability as a fraction.
  7. Group activities with different number of wedges on spinners and impact on probability of specific frequency of outcomes.
  8. Use a spinner activity to predict probabilities of other activities. 
  9. Given a linear set of points where the x-coordinates increase by one, identify what the y-coordinates are increasing by as a rate of prices rising or falling, height of a person growing, etc. 
  10. Construct a graph or table from given categorical data, and compare data categorized in the graph or table. 
  11. Crate a tactile graphic of a bell curve shown as a normal distribution. 
  12. Have a student create a simple bar graph using a real life example. 
  13. Find the mean of a set of numbers using a calculator.
  14. Show the student tactile graphics of various real-life situations and illustrate how they are similar to parabola or a straight line.  For example, show a rocket taking off, curving, and falling back to earth, or a student diving into a swimming pool, or Niagara Falls. 
  15. Show the student a tactile graphic of the diver ending up doing a belly flop instead of a smooth parabolic dive. 
  16. Give the student a tactile graphic scatter plot drawn on APH Draftsman film and placed in the APH Draftsman.  Give them a ruler and have them draw a straight line through the points so that approximately half is on one side of the ruler and half is on the other. 
  17. Start with concrete rate of change problems like walking speeds.  Graph on a pegboard.
  18. Define slope using slides and blocks. 
  19. Transfer slopes from slides to paper and discuss coefficients.
  20. Group activities and discussions using student relevant topics. 
  21. Define random in relevant ways like weather, flavors of a box of chocolates, ages of people on a particular bus. 
  22. Use computers for defining and recording information. 
  23. Use the Internet to look up definitions and examples. 
  24. Use computers to define problem.  
  25. As a group activity, have groups choose a location and estimate the mean age of the population in the location.  Each group finds their mean, margin of error, and creates simulation problems to perform calculations. 
  26. Separate students into two groups.  One uses cottonand  the other uses ear plugs.  Experiment with the effectiveness of treatments on noise blocking solutions.  Afterward evaluate the experiment for validity and reliability then make recommendations. 
  27. Record results of choosing objects from multiple bags of tactile objects versus multiple trials with a single bag of objects. 
  28. Using bags of 2 or more tactually different objects record what the chances are of picking Object A our of 12 objects or if there are 6 of each in the bag.  Next, if you remove an Object A what are the changes the next object selected will also be an Object A?  What are the changes it will be an Object B?  

Collage of making statistics and probability accessible

By Susan LoFranco

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