April 21, 2020

Post date: October 28, 2020

Last night our Eastern Maine NSAers met with Professor Nancy Hall's graduate students taking the Fluency Disorders class.  It was a mix of both 1st and 2nd year students since the course is only offered every other year.  We had two separate Zoom meetings, the 1st hour with the 2nd year students and 2nd hour with the 1st year students.

A big thank you to Chris M, Natalie B, Erin W, Lauren K, Ravi P,  and Shaleen J. (and me, Marybeth A!) for showing up to either one or both of the sessions.  (Rick... we saw you pop in, but then we lost you! Sorry you couldn't join us!).

We all took turn with the "the mic on" to share with the students our experiences with speech therapy.  And I do like how we did focus on this aspect, as these students are the future SLPs of the world.  We all had experiences and observations related to therapy and strategies to share which I think were meaningful and hopefully good take-aways for the students.  In turn, after our individual shares, the students were ready with questions for us.  The two groups of students had very similar questions too, mostly centered on "what were the most helpful things an SLP has done for you" and "what are the least helpful comments/behaviors", etc.  And in each group, thanks to Chris's input, we took the time to also talk about children/families and their different sets of issues/focus and of all the resources available to them through NSA, FRIENDS, and SFA.

Hope you are all doing well, each in our own "shelter".   This format worked pretty good for us I think.  I will be up for hosting a Zoom NSA Chapter meeting in a few weeks.  The national NSA Chapter Coordinators have sent out a few notices for Zoom training and ideas for meetings.  One of them is a Zoom game night.  Not sure how that works but I'm going to link into a training on that tonight to see what it's all about. Stay tuned!

Also many NSA Chapters across the nation are hosting Zoom meetings and inviting NSA members from all over to join in if they want.  It might be fun to join some of these other NSA meetings to explore and meet/greet other PWS and to hear/see what other meetings are like.  If any of you are interested in this, please email me and I will forward you the list of other meetings, times, zoom links, etc.

Below, FYI, I just found on my CNN news today, a link to "video meeting etiquette"... didn't know there was such a thing, but there it is!  I cut and pasted a bit of it below.  It was basically written for business leaders and the like, so I only cut/pasted the part that seemed relevant to us.

FROM CNN's "Work Transformed Newsletter"

If you weren't a fan of all the meetings you had when you were in the office, you probably aren't loving all the virtual meetings coming your way these days.

I get it.

It can feel a little awkward giving people a glimpse into our personal lives.

I'll admit to panic cleaning a little corner of my apartment and furiously applying makeup before hopping onto a video meeting.

But here's the thing: Having some face time with your colleagues is important.

Not only does it provide some of the social interaction we are missing, but being able to see each other's faces for reaction and feedback can help make a meeting more productive.

Meetings are hard enough to run effectively when you have everyone sitting around the table. Virtual meetings are even tougher to pull off -- and they come with their own set of challenges. I spoke with experts to get their best advice on how to pull them off successfully:

Meeting leaders, listen up. You play a big role in running an effective virtual meeting:

Create and share an agenda beforehand. That way everyone is prepared and stays on task. Give people space to talk, but don't be shy about calling on people or designating a speaking order in advance. For instance: "I'll start with Mary, then move on to Mike and Angela."

Don't let someone hijack your meeting. People tend to babble more when they aren't in their normal work environment, so you have to rein them in sometimes. Try saying something like, "in the interest of time, we're going to move on," or "let's take that conversation offline."

Meeting participants also play a critical role:

Maintain eye contact. Look at the speaker to help you focus. And don't answer emails or send a text during a meeting. (You likely aren't being as slick as you think you are.)

Express yourself. Exaggerating facial expressions or positive reinforcements like a thumbs up can help provide social cues that are easier to convey when everyone is in the same room.

Light is your friend. You want the lighting to be in front of you. If that's not possible, add a desk lamp next to your workstation. And try to avoid using your computer's microphone -- it picks up too much background noise.

Remember: Not all meetings have to be done via video. Sometimes an old school conference call will suffice.