Student experience | Marcus on studying with a visual impairment: thresholds in knowledge tests
“Enable zooming in on keys!“
Becoming an elementary school teacher is what Marcus wants. As a second-year pabo student at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, he does not let this limit him with his visual impairment. However, he is not only dependent on the educational institution, but also on agencies that offer national tests. And that is precisely where the bottleneck is. Marcus shares his experiences and provides tips for educational institutions and test providers so that students with visual impairments can successfully complete their studies.
Studying at pabo with a visual impairment
“My studies are going well. It is small-scale so everyone knows me and is willing to help out when needed. My vision is 5 percent, so I do need adjustments sometimes. I mainly use magnifiers to be able to see class material and tests well.”
Pre-sharing lesson material makes a difference
“It is very nice when I get the PowerPoint presentations of the lessons in advance. That way I can open and enlarge the presentation on my own laptop during class. Often these are ready in advance on the online learning environment. The advantage of this is that I can often copy text from the PowerPoint presentation and not have to take notes on paper. In the Word program, I can use shortcut keys to search for specific words so that I can often find concepts in my notes quickly, hardly have to strain myself and can continue to actively participate in the lesson. Some teachers don’t do this yet; they can improve on that.”
National tests are a stumbling block
“We also have to take several tests that are not created by the educational institution itself. A national knowledge test measures whether you have sufficient knowledge. You have to be given the opportunity to do that. These include the entrance tests, Knowledge Test Generic, Knowledge Test Skills and Wiscat. Often we have to take these in a special online program, which is very difficult for me.”
“The admissions tests were perhaps the nastiest tests I have ever had to take “
“In such a special online program, I did not have the possibility to enlarge the texts. As a result, I had to sit more crookedly to see the text and pictures on the screen properly. Your back starts hurting eventually. Also, with these kinds of tests you often only get 20 minutes of extra time. With other tests, it’s 50 percent of the normal test time. That’s not realistic.”
Advice to makers of national tests
“So I advise the test makers to enable zooming in on the tests. I don’t use speech software myself, but that is very important to others.”
Doing an internship with a visual impairment
“I started doing internships right from the first year. Internships are fun! The students are not so much concerned with my disability. I do use my phone to zoom in on their work. Two nice touches for me are that by using my phone I learn to be discreet with pictures and information of students and the students in turn experience that I dare to make myself vulnerable and want to think solution-oriented. Then they do get reminded. I am now doing an internship in grade 8. There they are more engaged with it and ask me for example: Were you born with that?”
Prejudice
“Because I only see 5 percent, I am socially blind. You notice that people do have prejudices about this. When I play soccer with the students during the break, it works very well and the students really enjoy it. When we are back in the classroom after the break and I have trouble reading the answers in the students’ notebooks, the students get another reality check.”
