Ensuring quality support meets the science and maths students technology needs

1. Ensuring quality support meets the science and maths students technology needs Abi James, With Y. Li, M. Wald & E.A. Draffan, ECS Partners, University of Southampton

2. You and maths….

3. How maths confident are you? Up to Level 2 / GCSE Calculate Calculate 30% of 120 Calculate the ratio of 25p to £2.45 Circle the expressions that is equivalent to Solve Solve

4. How maths confident are you? Up to A Level / Higher If , determine Prove by induction that, for all positive integers : The frequency f of the oscillation of the trolley is given by: Calculate the period of oscillation

5. Why are we concerned about maths and STEM?

6. University experience of maths

7. Print disabilities and mathematical notation • Up to 10% of student population may have a print impairment that could affect their ability to read or comprehend maths. Problems may include: • Reading the notation • Recalling names of notation and meanings • Proof reading notation • Recalling the steps of a process to solve a maths problem • Difficulty with comprehending symbols instead of words Access to text to speech with highlighting may improve access to maths notation.

8. When they get to university…do students expect maths? Biology Business Economics Given the sample, calculate: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) Consider . Determine and Use the data to obtain Ordinary Least Squares vales of in the following regression equation:

9. Exam paper – which subject?

10. Some students might anticipate maths content… Chemistry Engineering Calculate Which of the following is the Laplace transform of the function ? (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) none of the above

11. Students that want to do maths…. 1. Using the above results and Skokes’ theorem obtain the value of: Where A is the curved surface of the hemisphere and points outwards from the origin. 2. Mean energy equation can be written as:

12. Proportion of disabled students in UK HEIs by subject area, 2012/13

13. Proportion of disabled students in UK HEIs by subject area, 2012/13

14. Typical students requiring math support Proofreading - Tim:dyslexic engineering student. problems with proofreading and often make mistakes in calculations uses text to speech to proof read my assignments but it can't read the maths. struggle to remember all the names of the symbols making it hard to take notes Understand maths - Sarah:studying psychology Struggled with maths at schools, particularly with concentration due to ADHD(indications of dyscalculia) Finds listening and seeing words at the same time makes them easier to understand. But keeps forgetting what words and symbols mean.

15. The mathematical language barrier

16. Activity 1: mathematical meaning Complete the mathematical definitions of the terms on the worksheet Consider how you could explain this definition to a visual learner

17. The difference between maths & text Maths is a 2-deminsional notation. Location of a symbol affects its meaning Fourier Series equation 2 dimensional language when reading, 3 dimensional when writing

18. Talking Maths: The difference between maths & text Symbols in maths can mean different things: [AB]-1 Could mean: “left bracket, boldface capital a, boldface capital b, right bracket, superscript minus one” OR “inverse of the matrix product, boldface capital a, boldface capital b”

19. Typical Maths Lecture From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiaPIleRhgQ

20. Capturing Maths Notes LiveScribe Pen - Capturing audio while writing JISC case study of engineering student Tablets can also be useful, particularly OneNote

21. Hand writing recognition & maths • Hand-written maths relies on real-time analysis of strokes as symbols are formed • Much more dependent on accuracy & spatial layout than text recognition • Formation of symbols is not consistent • Across countries • Across individuals • Math input panel in Windows (and MathType)

22. Apps for capturing maths Starting to appear on tablet apps e.g. MathBrush but not necessarily about producing accessible output • Notes & Maths • MyScript Calculator • MathBrush for recongitzing hand-writing • But can also type TeX into a notes app & import to word / editor later

23. Reading Maths - Where does “maths” occur? Websites Publications (PDF) and e-books Documents, presentations and spreadsheets Learning materials Videos

24. Accessibility Requirements Some users may want to • Zoom / re-size • Search / index maths • Braille rendering • Read aloud maths with or without highlighting Reading aloud maths is particularly demanding on working memory. It may not be possible to vocalise diagrams.

25. Accessibility barriers to maths notation Most electronic maths is represented as images (PDFs, JPEGs, SVG) Mathematical mark-up MathML designed for accessibility but limited support in browsers and applications <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mfrac> <mml:mrow><mml:mi>a</mml:mi><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:mi>b</mml:mi></mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mfrac> </mml:math> MathML support is improving in e-books (epub3) and a few projects continue to develop technologies to read maths aloud [7, 5,1]

26. The difference between maths & text: non-linear representation and ambiguity (1) Maths is a 2-deminsional notation. Location of a symbol affects its meaning. GCSE question: Circle the expressions that is equivalent to text read as: “x 4” “4x” “4x” “x times x times x times x” Quadratic Formula: Read as “x = b square root b 2 4 ac slash 2 a”

27. The difference between maths & text: non-linear representation and ambiguity (2) Maths when read aloud can mean different things Example 1: “a plus b over 2”: Example 2: “3 plus 2 minus 4”:

28. Accurate reading of maths: Example 1: “a plus b over 2” / “a plus b all over 2” Accurate but verbose alternatives “a plus open fraction b over 2 close fraction” “open fraction open bracket a plus b close bracket over 2 close fraction”

29. BIDMAS Activity: Using the numbers provided work out as many ways as possible to replicate in symbols: Three plus two minus four squared Hint: there are at least 3 answers to this sum BIDMAS: A way of remembering the order in which operations are carried out. It stands for Brackets - Indices - Division - Multiplication - Addition - Subtraction.

30. Accurate reading of maths: Example 2: “3 plus 2 minus 4 squared”: “3 plus, open bracket 2 minus 4 close bracket squared”: Accurate reading of maths can be long and verbose – a disadvantage for those with processing or working memory difficulties Earcons, spearcons a have been proposed to replace elements that represent hierarchical structure (e.g. brackets) [2] while use of pitch and intonation has also been used [4]

31. Mathematical semantics A mathematical expression or equation is like a sentence. It has a grammar and semantic structure. Simple expressions are like simple sentences: “I can run” …… Complex expressions can contain sub-clauses and conjugates "I can run like the wind if the grizzly bear chases after me“… If sighted readers can drill down into the semantics of an equation then audio representation of the notation may be more valuable.

32. Visualising maths notation Concepts maps & tree diagrams are often used to assist mathematical teaching [3]. Tree diagrams are used to describe semantics Specialist maths tutors have described how concept maps can be used to help dyslexic students visualise problems [6, 8].

33. STEMReader project Project to develop proof of concept from Feb 2014 – July 2014 funded by BIS, Technology Strategy Board, managed by Techdis. Goals: Improve solutions for reading aloud maths notation for students studying GCSE to degree level maths and science Apply concept of semantic web to allow for navigation and visualisation of maths notation Challenge – to develop usable, sustainable tool for print-impaired students to use alongside their current support strategies. Current proof of concept tool allows MathML equations to be read aloud, navigated by keyboard & display as a semantic tree. Will be able to be used with Office documents by selecting equations.

34. STEMReader examples - fractions

35. Activity 3: Tree diagrams Can you create a tree for Three plus two minus four squared

36. STEMReader – advanced example Navigate through an equation using the tree Highlight location of variables within the equation Provide users with different options for speaking equations Investigating different ways of displaying tree view Contact a.james@soton.ac.uk for further information

37. Activity 4: Reflecting on our learning • What do you need to support students with their STEM content? • How do we incorporate ADSHE 7 principles when supporting STEM students? • Metacognition • Multi-sensory • Relevance • Motivation • Overlearning • ‘Little and Often’ • Modelling

38. Further Information Abi James a.james@soton.ac.uk 07941 465985 https://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/projects/current/

39. References [1] Bahram, S., Soiffer, N., & Frankel L. (2014) Understanding Mathematical Expressions through Interactive Navigation. In 29thAnnual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities, Northridge, California, USA. [2] Bates, E., & Fitzpatrick, D. (2010). Spoken mathematics using prosody, earcons and spearcons. Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 407–414. [3] Brown, T. (2013). Meeting the Standards in Primary Mathematics: A Guide to the ITT NC. Routledge. [4] Gellenbeck, E., & Stefik, A. (2009). Evaluating Prosodic Cues as a Means to Disambiguate Algebraic Expressions : An Empirical Study, 139–146. [5] Holden, W., Sunnes, M., & Graffe, S. (2014) The Next Generation Text to Speech Program. In 29thAnnual International Conference on Technology and Persons with [6] Perkin, G. (2004). The dyslexic engineer–issues for mathematics education. International Conference on Engineering Education,(October 2003), 1–11. [7] Sorge, V., Chen, C., Raman, T. V., & Tseng, D. (2014, April). Towards making mathematics a first class citizen in general screen readers. In Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (p. 40). ACM. [8] Trott, C. (2003). Mathematics support for dyslexic students. MSOR Connections, 3(4), 17-20.