Posts tagged travel

SHAV Conference 2016

kA few days ago I had the opportunity to attend the Speech-Language Hearing Association of Virginia (SHAV) conference in Chantilly, VA.  It was such an amazing experience that I am so glad I was able to share with my fellow students as well as my professors.  I personally went to sessions about reading strategies, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Core Vocabulary, Early Intervention, and SLP licensure (just to name a few). Attending SHAV has expanded my way of thinking about my future as a speech-language pathologist in that it has showed me how passionate the professionals in my field are and how we are constantly striving to learn and improve. There are so many aspects to explore within our small field—feeding and swallowing, AAC, voice, articulation, language, fluency, pragmatics…

It’s daunting but also exhilarating. I will able to use my degree to open doors of communication for such a diverse population.

I am extremely lucky to be where I am right now –in a fantastic graduate program where my professors cheer me on and provide opportunities for me to grow and where I am surrounded by the sweetest group of girls I have ever known who support me in every aspect of my life.

Thanks for the memories SHAV.

SHAV Conference 2016

shav2016Hello! My name is Moriah Mayhew. I am a first-year graduate student in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program at Longwood. This year I attended my third annual Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia Conference. As always this conference provided me with new knowledge, new relationships, and fresh insights into the careers of speech-language pathology and audiology. I especially enjoyed the sessions I attended focusing on reading and dysphagia. I am looking forward to using the knowledge that I gained from this trip, and more to come.

SHAV Conference 2016

First purchases as a future SLP

First purchases as a future SLP

This past weekend I attended the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia’s annual conference held in Chantilly, Virginia. I attended the conference on Thursday, March 17th and Friday, March 18th. During the conference, I was able to partake in a number of sessions held by a variety of speakers. I attended sessions in the areas of language, early intervention, AAC, and licensure requirements.These sessions provided me with information that relates directly to the content that I am learning in my graduate program at Longwood. I plan on using the information that I learned during this conference throughout my career as a speech-language pathologist.

While attending the conference, I was also able to volunteer during the CDF auction. This provided me with many opportunities to interact and network with many professionals in our field. I will carry these new relationships with me as I continue on my journey as a speech-language pathologist. This was my second year attending the conference and I look forward to attending in the years ahead. I am very thankful to have been given this opportunity.

SHAV Conference 2016

shav2016This past week, I was afforded the opportunity to attend the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia (SHAV) 2016 conference in Chantilly, Virginia. I attended the preconference on Wednesday, and the day-long conference on Thursday and Friday. This was my first time attending this annual conference. I had the opportunity to attend sessions covering various topics including: ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication), Language and Literacy Through Art, etc. I also had the opportunity to network with various vendors from all over the state and some from outside of Virginia. This experience was very memorable for me and I am looking forward to attending the conference next year in Richmond, Virginia. I was able to share this experience with all of my peers in my cohort and with many members of the Longwood CSDS faculty. I am anxious to implement the knowledge that I gained from the conference in my future therapy sessions. I am very much looking forward to my future as a Speech-Language Pathologist.

SHAV Conference 2016

IMG_2835This spring, I had the opportunity to attend the Speech Hearing Association of Virginia (SHAV) 2016 conference. During this conference, I attended multiple sessions about voice therapy, Autism, language, AAC devices, and embarking on my new career. In between sessions, I also had the opportunity to speak to speech-language pathologists and employers who work in different areas around Virginia. I am very thankful I took this opportunity not only to attend sessions that interested me, but also to meet and connect with speech-language pathologists and employers around Virginia. I believe the people I met at this conference will become valuable resources and connections as I get closer to graduation next year.

SHAV Conference 2016

This past week, I haIMG_0854d the pleasure of attending the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia (SHAV) conference. Over three days, the conference had a large variety of sessions for many different areas within the field of speech-language pathology. I am currently interested in pursuing a career in pediatric dysphagia and was very excited to attend several sessions related to this topic. In addition to sessions about dysphagia, I attended sessions about treatment for language, articulation, and fluency. By attending this conference, I was able to augment my knowledge from my graduate program about different evidence-based therapy options. I was also able to network with speech-language pathologists and graduate students from other universities.

I truly enjoyed the experience of attending this conference and the knowledge gained from the professionals.

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Our VSRA Experience

Sarah Wells, Lindsey McGibbon, and Alexa Russell after presenting "Loving Literacy: Keeping Kids Konnected"

Sarah Wells, Lindsey McGibbon, and Alexa Russell after presenting “Loving Literacy: Keeping Kids Konnected”

Our group traveled to the VSRA conference to present on motivating older students through the inclusion of technology in the classroom. We put our presentation together during our research class in the Fall semester. Over winter break and the beginning of the Spring semester, we edited and finalized our work. We were extremely excited to accepted to the VSRA conference.

The morning of our presentation, we woke up bright and early to set up our room. We did a quick run through of what we wanted to do and how we pictured it flowing. As we stood at the front waiting for our first audience members to sit down, we had a realization. Nobody was coming. Through a series of unfortunate events, our presentation did not have the attendance we had anticipated. However, we quickly packed up our things and made it to another session so we could make the best use of our time. I definitely feel that we learned a lot through our experience attending the conference. I would recommend this conference to students in the future and hope to be able to go again myself.

2016 VSRA Experience

IMG_5391Emily Swale, Emily Cornett, and I had the wonderful opportunity to present at the Virginia Reading State Association (VSRA) Conference in Norfolk, VA. We prepared a presentation on how to integrate the arts – theatre, music, and visual arts – into literacy practices. We were very happy to have a turn out of over 30 participants who were eager to learn from us! At first, this experience was a bit daunting… but once we got started we had a blast! We had a great balance of teachers from all grade levels, as well as classroom teachers versus reading specialists. We did a variety of activities that were engaging and FUN. At the end of our hour presentation, we had many teachers stop to give us encouraging feedback with enthusiasm. I would definitely say that our presentation was a huge success! Not to mention, we also had the opportunity to attend the conference and learn from so many brilliant teachers. :)

Virginia State Reading Association Conference 2016: Exploring the Depths of Literacy

Sarah Wells, Lindsey McGibbon, and Alexa Russell after presenting "Loving Literacy: Keeping Kids Konnected"

Sarah Wells, Lindsey McGibbon, and Alexa Russell after presenting “Loving Literacy: Keeping Kids Konnected”

The Virginia State Reading Association Conference opened my eyes to the even more vast world of teachers who seek to educate, inform, explore, and teach literacy on a deeper level in their classrooms ranging from Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. Upon arriving in Norfolk, I was in awe how many presenters and exhibits there were at the educators’ fingertips for the weekend. I had the opportunity of presenting on Friday morning to a small crowd with two other colleagues. Our presentation was titled “Loving Literacy: Keeping Kids Konnected” and the focus was on finding ways to incorporate technology with reading and writing into the upper elementary and middle school classrooms. Our audience offered incite through verbally expressing ideas and ways that the ideas could be manipulated and utilized in their own classrooms, which I found to be the most profound and useful way to take away from the presentation. I spent the rest of the weekend attending other presentations and I tended to gravitate towards those about engagement, motivation, and getting your class involved in their learning. I listened to Dr. Nell Duke discuss the indispensability of classroom motivation and how to connect with the students. She had us interact with our fellow teachers in the crowd by asking to discuss how to execute her ideas. I also attended a general session that discuss why the power of reading choice for our students helps them foster reading independence and strength. I visited one session that surprised myself for attending which was about strategies for word study and how to successfully implement in the classroom. After spending last semester in an elementary school (when I am more comfortable with 6th-12th), I found that this was a good opportunity to learn more about other grade levels and what could be expected as a K-12 Reading Specialist. I would encourage any educator from any background to attend the VSRA because it shows how one subject can really include a variety of different skills and knowledge into one. Our students need to become stronger readers and writers and this conference shows how to create classrooms that cohesively incorporate both that content subject and developing basic skills.

VSRA Conference 2016

I recently had the VSRAopportunity to attend the Virginia State Reading Association 49th Annual Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. This was a weekend conference full of literacy speakers and concurrent sessions from around the state. My peers, Alyssa Cardwell and Emily Swale, and I were lucky enough to be the speakers at one of the sessions on Friday morning. We gave a presentation on “Integrating the Arts into Literacy” which included information about how to implement music, theater, and visual arts into the elementary and middle school literacy curriculum. We discussed multiple strategies and had many hands-on activities to go along with our information. Our audience seemed very engaged and were happy to take away some of these activities to use in their own classrooms.

After our session was over, we were able to attend several of the other sessions available at the conference including one very informative session that focused on writing in the primary grades. I left with many free resources and ideas about how to make literacy, not only fun, but effective in my own future classroom. I am glad I was able to attend this conference as well as to have had the experience to present to a group of educators. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and I look forward to attending another conference in the future!

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