Doing math: mathematics accessibility issues
Improvements in mathematics accessibility support are being made to enable students to do and learn algebraic skills; i.e., arithmetic manipulation on the level of basic building blocks of entire expressions, working on complex expressions simplifications and evaluation, and solving algebraic equations.
Abstract
Limited mathematics accessibility support has been always a barrier for students with impaired vision to learn that fundamental subject. In response to that persistent need, enhancing mathematics accessibility has been deeply thought of with more attention given towards facilitating "Doing the math" and not only working on the rendering level. In specific, for the challenges they face in algebra, the efforts are being made to enable students to do and learn algebraic skills; i.e., arithmetic manipulation on the level of basic building blocks of entire expressions, working on complex expressions simplifications and evaluation, and solving algebraic equations. As a non-visual framework, manipulation is made through an accessible hierarchy of recorded, navigatable, and recoverable steps. With different layers each of which supports distinct needs of learners; the framework is to facilitate doing the math according to the student level of subject mastery and disability severity in minimal possible efforts; i.e., avoiding rewriting the same sub-expressions when they are not manipulated at certain point in the hierarchy from one step to the next.