Instructional Barriers

Introduction

The resources you choose for your students to engage with during the semester could be a barrier. If you have used the same scanned documents for years, this could be the time for an update!

Here are some barriers to consider.

Students with vision impairments or reading disabilities like dyslexia commonly use text-to-speech technologies (TTS). But publisher digital versions often use images for math and science notation, which are typically not read by TTS applications. This is especially true for PDF textbooks.

Common OCR applications used to scan print textbooks ignore math and science notation.

Math and science notations on the web often use images instead of accessible expressions.

Online science simulations most often are not designed with accessibility in mind. These simulations often require sight, hearing, and eye-hand coordination to activate the simulation and change conditions. Unless they are purposefully created to be accessible, screen reading software will be unable to voice data points that are displayed on the screen as part of the simulation. 

Accurately recording formulas and diagrams written on the board during a lecture, and then getting these notes to the student in an accessible manner, is a challenge.

Instructor verbalization of math and science notation is not standardized. Few instructors are well-versed in math speech rules such as MathSpeak Links to an external site.. Without using such rules during class, the instructor’s verbalization will be ambiguous to the student who cannot see. 

The same will be true for supplemental instructional videos such as those made available on Khan Academy, or that are sometimes provided through online textbook companion websites.