Hello, New Year’s Resolutions. We meet again. I know in the past we’ve gone our separate ways after a month or two, but this year, I think we should stick together for the whole year– I have a lot I want to accomplish in my professional life in 2015!
1. Blog more consistently- When I first started out, I was doing multiple posts a week. It was a LOT of work, but it made me feel really accomplished! Once we bought our first house in March, I fell off the horse, big time! Owning a home was all so very exciting and new, and I had SO many things I wanted to do with the house, that blogging was kind of put on the back burner. I still haven’t quite gotten back into the groove of consistent blogging, but my goal for 2015 is to blog a minimum of once a week for the first couple months and then consistently do at least two posts per week after that.
2- Become more proficient in AAC– I’ve definitely developed better skills in the realm of AAC this school year, but it’s still an area in which I feel I could use more proficiency. Step one of this goal was attending a LAMP training/workshop in Wichita in December 2014– it was awesome, and I am feeling more confident already!
3- Be more consistent about sending home homework activities for some of my students– Realistically, I know they’re not going to get practice in every single night. But, for the parents that I know DO want the homework, especially the parents of my phonological processing kids, I’d like to be able to send home a handful of different home activities each week. I think I have enough materials available to do so, it’s just a matter of getting them all organized and put together into packets by sound/phonological target.
4-Educate others who don’t know what we do: A teacher I know in another district has often made negative comments about my profession or blanket statements about students on IEPs in general that have really gotten under my skin. I don’t believe this person intends to be rude with their comments–really and truly, I believe the comments are just made out of ignorance about our profession and a lack of understanding about what we do to help students with special needs and why they need accommodations, differentiated instruction, etc…– but I’m making it a goal in 2015 to do my best to educate this person on what we do and why it matters. If I can help shed some light, I feel like I’ll be inadvertently making a difference in the lives of the students on IEPs in this teacher’s classroom, as well!
5- Attend the ASHA conference in Denver! I have been dying to go to an ASHA convention, and all the SLP bloggers who were there in Orlando this year made it look/sound super fun & I wished I could have been there to go to all the amazing seminars/booths. Denver is only about 8 hours from KC, and there’s often times cheap flights between the two cities, so I’m really set on trying to make it happen this year!
I have a handful of other goals on my list, as well, but I think this is a good place to start. Check out what other SLPs are resolving to do in 2015 by visiting Natalie Snyder’s link up here. What are your goals for the new year?
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