[Athen] Seeking Guidance: Supporting a Newly Blind Student in Online STEM Courses

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

Regarding physiology, most colleges have 3D models already. If your student is local they need to show up to examine them. If not, you could contact a college in your student's home area to see if they can help.
Sighted students need the 3D models too for study purposes.
I didn't know this until I got lost on campus one day and wandered in to an enormous lab full of 3D models, skeletons, muscles, tendons, ligaments etc.Students had to check out the models they needed along with a study room.  The woman who runs the lab said most colleges had them. She said sighted students also needed somethings besides 2D pictures to envision what anatomy and physiology really looked like.
Make sure the student is really really comfortable using AI to independently get descriptions of things like the bloodstream that cannot be shown as a 3D model. Talk to the instructor regarding alternate test questions because many questions on exams will be asking a student to identify pictured items. The student will need to learn to advocate for this as well.
If getting student volunteers to assist is difficult one often overlooked resource are sororities, fraternities,  and on-campus clubs. And if your student is online, many young people enjoy the opportunity to do volunteer work over zoom as long as it's just a few hours a week.
We have a similar problem with an instructor who didn't want a blind student. Sometimes it's good to ask the student to wait until a more accepting instructor is available which is what we're doing now for physical anthropology. The current instructor is not supportive of students working in teams, but the one we've encouraged the student to learn from will teach it again in the winter.
As a newly blind person, your student may not know how to be symbiotic yet, but it's super important in STEM classes, as they can add great support to a team by taking notes, coming up with study questions and making sure everyone participates. With my students, I always ask them to think about what they are going to contribute to a team so it will be a natural thing for other team members to fill in where their disability prevents participation. For example, one of my LD students was encouraged to take "video notes" when their team worked on a project and kept a running record of what the group was discovering. Someone new to their disability may not know how to compensate or may be uncomfortable about revealing their limitations. They will need encouragement!
Also with these difficult courses, it's best to take one at a time if you have any sort of sensory disability. It's hard sometimes to convince young people to do this, especially because DOR and financial aid don't want to support a student taking fewer units. But we always fill in with easy classes like speechor P.E. so they can get the needed funding but not be stressed taking too many hard classes at once.
You probably know this already, but I'm posting all these tips for the benefit of those new to serving disabled students. It's the little things we often overlook, like reminding a student not to take physics, chemistry and biology all at the same time!

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Bishop, Jeff - (jeffbis) via athen-list
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2025 5:01 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Seeking Guidance: Supporting a Newly Blind Student in Online STEM Courses

Hello all,

We are working with a student who will be taking statistics, organic chemistry, and physiology-entirely online. She is newly blind and is currently learning JAWS for Windows. Notably, she has taken the chemistry course before as a sighted student.
We are in the process of seeking academic aid, but we are also very concerned about how to best support her with aspects of these classes that are highly visual, particularly the 3D models and computer-based work that are integral to chemistry and physiology.
Have any of you faced a similar situation? If so, how did you approach accommodations for courses that rely heavily on visual and spatial content? Any specific recommendations for tools, strategies, or approaches that worked well for students in these disciplines would be very helpful.

We sincerely appreciate any guidance or resources you can share.

Thank you,

Jeff Bishop

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20250820/1aee7467/attachment.html>