MURFREESBORO — How
can a totally blind college student pass a statistics class, which requires
students to understand such visual items as graphs and charts?
Stuart Bernstein, a professor of psychology at MTSU, found ways
to help rising senior James Boehm of Memphis, Tennessee, in his Statistics 2030
class in the fall 2014 semester. That ingenuity earned Bernstein an award from
the National Foundation of the Blind.
The Stones River Chapter gave Bernstein an Educator of the
Year Certificate and his own white-tipped cane at a chapter gathering in
mid-April in the SunTrust Room of MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building. Mark
Riccobono, president of the national organization, congratulated Bernstein via
speakerphone.
The chapter acted on Boehm’s nomination entry, which read,
in part, “When I think of a professor who does whatever it takes to make a
student’s education fully accessible and rewarding, I cannot help but think of
Dr. Bernstein.”
Bernstein said Boehm had learned of a special tablet that
would create raised lines on paper by drawing on it with heavy pressure.
The tablet, which is about the size of a mouse pad, enabled
Bernstein to draw columns and graphs that Boehm could read by touching them.
“The probability tables are incredibly dense with columns
and columns of numbers,” said Bernstein.
In addition, Bernstein used a multimedia interactive
textbook that was paid for with a grant from the National Science Foundation. He
also saved his PowerPoint presentations to the class in an outline format so
that Boehm’s text reader could say them out loud.
“This is just a regular part of my job, to make sure that
everyone I’m teaching understands and has access to stats,” said Bernstein.
“It’s just what I do. And he did the hard work. I just simplified the tables.
He learned everything.”
Boehm, who attends classes with the help of his trusty
working dog, Shep, wrote, “Dr. Stuart Bernstein always made himself available
to me if I needed further explanation on a lesson. If I emailed him, rarely did
I wait more than an hour for a response.”
The certificate reads, “The National Federation of the Blind
of Tennessee, Stones River Chapter, recognizes Dr. Stuart Bernstein as the
recipient of the 2015 Educator of the Year Award because of the ways he ensures
that his MTSU students who are blind and visually impaired have equal access to
every aspect of his classes, his individualized support and willingness to
learn supportive technology and tools and his recognition of the unique
learning styles of all students.”
Boehm and Bernstein also credit MTSU’s Adaptive Technology
Lab and Disability and Access Center with providing critical assistance.
For more information on MTSU’s services for the disabled,
contact the Disability and Access Center at 615-898-2783 or go to www.mtsu.edu/dac/index/php.
