Inclusive Teaching – Math Accessibility

Who has access to STEM fields and who makes that decision? We all do, and increasing the participation and success of all students in STEM fields is critical to the future vitality of the engineering profession.[1] Despite efforts aimed at diversifying STEM fields, disability as a form of diversity is often overlooked and disabled STEM professionals continue to face significant barriers to equitable access.[2]

Previous articles in this Inclusive Teaching series provided an introduction to accessibility terminology, drew attention to the challenges of disability disclosure, and examined Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles as one method of inclusive teaching practice. In this article, we will examine challenges to equitable access in STEM fields and introduce ongoing efforts at CLDT to address math accessibility.

STEM Equity

Disabled students and STEM professionals are underrepresented in postsecondary degrees awarded and have higher unemployment and underemployment rates than their non-disabled colleagues.[3] While 9% of workers in the general population self-identify as disabled, only 3% do so in STEM fields.[4] The ongoing stigma of disability disclosure is one potential cause leading to a lack of role models for STEM students to ‘see’ themselves as successful.[5]

Instructional designers and faculty play a key role in STEM equity through course design and delivery. Research has shown that inclusive and equitable teaching practices have a greater influence on STEM performance and career confidence than do students’ own backgrounds.[6] Accessibility of course content is an important piece of equitable access and inclusive teaching, however, accessibility efforts typically focus on the written word often overlooking the information found in equations.

Math Accessibility

Over the past year, a focus group of CLDT course designers and EP faculty have worked together to investigate math accessibility in several pilot courses. We are focusing on math as both a language and a tool, and have begun to share lessons learned on a broader scale through workshops, national conference presentations and collaboration with other divisions and universities.

Instructional Designers (IDs) Sara Shunkwiler and Mel Rizzuto recently joined with Space Systems Engineering (SSE) graduate and new adjunct faculty member Alexa Valdez to present “The Evolution of Accessibility in Math-Intense Engineering Courses” at the HighEdWeb Accessibility Summit.[7] We shared accessibility lessons learned in working closely with Space Systems faculty Brian Bauer, Aaron Rogers, Mario Lento, and 17 guest lecturers to redevelop and improve accessibility in two of EP’s largest and most math-intense courses.

A key goal for Sara Shunkwiler in her role as an ID is to normalize the conversation around disability inclusion and accessibility with faculty, staff, and students. Sharing why accessibility matters and barriers to access was an essential first step in creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for our nearly 200 students each year. Accessibility improvements included updating documents, directions, navigation, layout and language in the Canvas course site and developing procedures to create accurate and accessible math content. Explicitly drawing attention to accessibility features in the course is important for student success. Both students and faculty have asked how they can further support their disabled fellow students and colleagues in the workplace.[8,9] In response, our team helped develop the Student Accessibility Resources page for Canvas at JHU, which includes a section on creating accessible course projects. One of the biggest efforts, however, was the close collaboration between CLDT staff and faculty to develop and troubleshoot procedures for making math content accessible to assistive technology. 

Workshops

In Part I – Math as a Language on November 8th, we shared background information on why disability inclusion and equitable access to math content matters for disabled STEM students and professionals. We examined math as both a language and a tool, including the visual, auditory, and symbolic forms of math content in a course. We described the challenges of spoken math including the difficulty of conveying accurate hierarchy and structure of equations without a visual representation.

On November 15th, we presented Part II – Equation Creation Tools. Accessible equations use mathematical language that can be recognized and read accurately by assistive technology. We provided an overview of the mathematical languages MathML and LaTeX and shared best practices for creating accessible equations using the tools MathType, EquatIO and the Canvas equation editor. We also provided a table of Accessible Math Languages, Tools & Outputs that can serve as a decision tree tool as you develop mathematical content for your courses.

View the workshop recordings:

Part 1 – Math as a Language

Part 2 – Equation Creation Tools

Slides for both workshops