I am very excited to serve as featured contributor for the American Speech-Language Hearing Association’s online publication, ASHASphere. I was asked to write an article about the groups I facilitate at Towson University for adults with autism. Here is my article, featured today on their website:
Welcome to my Year in Review Post! 2012 was an exciting year for me…the creation, evolution and launch of LiveSpeakLove, new writing opportunities, new friends and fellow SLPs from around the world, and a new job at Towson University! I can hardly believe the whirlwind year I have had, full of opportunity and blessings. Last week I received a 2012 Year in Review email from WordPress, and I read the email in pure amazement that I am privileged to have found such a labor of love that people enjoy. I though I would share a few website stats and highlights as part of this reflection post:
Visitors: According to WordPress, about 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. My website had more visits than a small country in Europe!
Top Posts: Here are the Top 5 Posts for LiveSpeakLove in 2012 – wow, each of these posts had 8-10 THOUSAND hits!:
Global Reach: LiveSpeakLove was accessed in over 154 countries in 2012! United States of America and Canada were the top two countries, followed closely by Australia, United Kingdom, Phillipines and New Zealand. Hello and THANK YOU to all my supporters around the world!
Referrals: It may come as no surprise that the Top Two Referring Sites were Pinterest and Facebook! Pinterest has evolved into a goldmine of resources for creative SLPs who know the value in sharing a good thing. Many of my referrals came from other SLPs who searched my LiveSpeakLove Pinterest Board and other boards like the shared SLP Blog Post Board for ideas. Big thanks to all who repinned my posts or shared my materials on Facebook!
Features: I am beyond thrilled to have been featured on some amazing websites this past year. I actually lost track of all of you who mentioned LiveSpeakLove on your own blogs and websites. If I’ve missed you, feel free to post a comment with the link and I will add you to my blogroll. The features below are from websites (the ones I know about) where I was featured as an award winner or special contributor.
What an amazing year! I am beyond thrilled to be working at Towson University, educating the next generation of SLPs — and sharing a little bit of my SLP life here. Thank you to all who have supported this site from its genesis, and offered encouragement and kudos to me throughout 2012. I look forward to another great year in the months ahead. To give you a glimpse at just how blessed and happy I am right now with my work, I will share with you this reflective Teaching Statement I submitted recently as part of my first year faculty review:
Walking into a classroom filled with thirty-eight young adults this past August was not easy. I knew that each student was anxious to meet me, to hear what I had to say and to quickly assess their upcoming semester. New to Towson University and to the position of Clinical Assistant Professor, I remember feeling a bit intimidated as I looked around the room. I also remember silently acknowledging that the crowded classroom was exactly where I wanted to be. I knew this fact before I entered the room, but I savored the thought as I introduced myself to everyone…exactly where I wanted to be. Somehow, I had earned the perfect opportunity to use my personal strengths and talents to do something that I truly enjoyed…help people learn. In that moment, I realized that my core beliefs about teaching would shape the success of those thirty-eight students who sat in front of me.
As a speech-language pathologist, I have learned that good teaching should inspire students in meaningful ways. This semester, I wanted to inspire my students to learn course material and to have fun while they learned. But I also wanted to inspire each student to become a life-long learner, and to feel excited about the idea of becoming a speech-language pathologist. I wanted students to know why they were learning something, and to understand its value. Each class this semester, I worked to make sure that students could connect with what they were learning, and know that what they were learning was important. I incorporated stories from various clinical experiences to help them understand the application of their learning. I believe that I was, in fact, very successful in this endeavor. Many students thanked me in person and through email for a wonderful semester, admitting that I had helped to solidify their commitment to the profession.
I also know that good teaching should engage students in their learning. Engaging thirty-eight students in a classroom at one time is not an easy task. I did learn some new techniques through suggestions following a Peer Evaluation, and through my own experimentation. I worked hard to incorporate Universal Design for Learning Standards, offering multiple means of presentation and responses throughout my assignments and instruction. I used Prezi presentation software in addition to the standard PowerPoint lecture format. I also incorporated videos, group break-out sessions and hands-on activities as much as possible. In addition, I realized that I needed to quickly learn everyone’s names (again, no easy feat in a class of thirty-eight students, especially in back-to-back sections.) Learning names helped me to include more students in class discussions, and to validate their responses and participation in a personal way. Connecting with students in personal ways also allowed me to better assess their personalities and learning styles. I noted that in the future, I would like to get to know students individually much sooner in the semester.
Finally, I know that good teaching should include intentional excellence. To effectively engage and inspire students in intentionally excellent ways, one must be prepared and organized. Organization is not exactly my strength, but I did work hard this semester to walk into each class with a specific plan and a designated purpose. I spent long hours and many late nights making sure each activity, assignment or video clip aligned well with my learning objectives, and that the selected tools would inspire and engage students. I wanted each and every class meeting to specifically increase the knowledge and expertise of all the students in my classroom. I periodically sought feedback from students regarding quizzes, assignments and assessments, reflecting on whether each course component was useful and relevant. I also collected feedback to assess whether I was meeting the learning needs of individual students. I did recognize changes that should be made in future classes, and I recorded those suggestions in a personal teaching log.
I feel fortunate to have had this opportunity to educate young adults in ways that reflect my core beliefs. I want to continue learning new ways to inspire and engage learners, while effectively preparing them for graduate school and future careers. I know that I have come a long way since I walked into that university classroom five months ago, with thirty-eight young adults eagerly waiting for me to teach. Reflecting on that first day and on the rest of the semester, I feel very successful despite some mistakes. I feel encouraged by what I have learned, grateful for the experiences I have had, and still confident in knowing that I am exactly where I want to be.
Today I gave my last final exam of my first semester at Towson University! Now to grade the stack of ~ 80 exams. 🙂 I can honestly say that I absolutely LOVED teaching the two sections of Phonetics class I was given in addition to my other clinical responsibilities. The Phonetics of American English class is one of the very first classes TU students take after they are admitted into the Audiology, Speech-Language Pathology and Deaf Studies major (following pre-major status and a competitive application process that allows only the top 70 students officially into the major.) The students I taught this semester were inspired, fresh, enthusiastic and very bright. They asked lots of great questions, and seemed to even welcome the many quizzes I’d built in to the course (perhaps too many; that was a lot of grading!!) There was one assignment in particular they seemed to embrace — the final phonetics project. Students were given the basic instruction to apply knowledge from the course in a way that appealed to them (paper, presentation, creative endeavor, etc.) I purposely left the type of project up to them, wanting to include different styles of learning and multiple means of responses (stop right now and Google Universal Design for Learning standards if you are unfamiliar with the concepts of learning styles and multiple means of responses.) I also wanted the students to fuel their inspiration and apply what they’d learned in a way that THEY found meaningful. I have to say that I was completely blown away by their ingenuity, creativity and hard work. Nearly all students took this project to a level I hadn’t anticipated, and their excitement about the project was contagious. I wish that I could showcase all of the talent and inspiration that poured into my classroom during the first couple weeks of December. I have instead selected a few projects to share with you here. Each project is posted with permission from the student(s). I hope you enjoy their work…I know I did!
First, I give you this video presentation showcasing transcription of the connected speech (song) by students Dana Rzewnicki, Lauren Ross and Kelley Finck:
Next, here is the group project from Rachel Bensley, Victoria Andre, Elena Mitoulis and Michael DiSanti. They created a CD insert for Taylor Swift’s album, RED. Their CD insert included transcriptions of every song on the album. Here is a picture highlighting some of their creative work:
The following project is from Samantha Cunzo and Katrina Mull. They put together a comical video skit highlighting some of their “study experiences” as they learned material throughout the semester:
The following project is from Emma Voss — she decided to incorporate her love for baking and create “Phonetics Cookies.” She baked and iced cookies featuring all of the phonetic symbols from the IPA alphabet, using different colors and outlines to represent distinctive features of the sounds. She also impressed the class by passing out the cookies for all to eat, along with a signature batch of chocolate chip cookies as an added treat! Here are some pictures of her cookies:
Natalie Hill and Sarah Morrison created this cute and comical “commercial” for the “Phonetics School of Phonetics.” They showcased parts of our very own Towson University in their commercial as they incorporated knowledge from various units we covered in our class.
Christine Feinour, Grace Baker and Anna Hild created The College Girl’s Guide to Phonetics. Their book detailed all the American English Phonemes of the International Phonetic Alphabet, with key words and graphics to illustrate the pronunciation of each phoneme. Their book was artfully crafted and highlighted distinctive features of each phoneme in a scrapbook-style memento:
And last but not least, I give you Rachel Urban in her witty, debut performance as she demonstrates her knowledge of dialectal variation. Her unique presentation had me chuckling for a long while, impressed at the way she stepped a bit outside of her comfort zone.
Time and space do not allow me to share all of the wonderful projects with you — the board games, the presentations, the transcription of speech from various movies, and more. Suffice it to say that 1) I love my job; and 2) The future of Speech-Language Pathology is looking pretty darn good!
Now, back to grading those final exams…. 🙂
