Browse by Theme

In just 90-minutes, join us on an exhilarating journey to sample and explore the Enabling Accessible Blended Learning for Equity (ENABLE) Framework that aims to embed equity into design processes. Using the world cafe format and experiential methods, collaborate with us to improve and advance this agenda. Session recording and slides now available!

Following the increased work to raise disability awareness, nowadays, we see many characters with disabilities in books, games, movies, and TV series. More representation is always great, or is it? In this talk, I will discuss how the current ways we present disability can be counter productive rather than empowering. I discuss how some of the seemingly innocent characters we see on Netflix or in games are still advancing harmful stereotypes. We need a shift in our understanding of people with disabilities as we call for better representation. I end this talk with real life, practical examples of positive disability representations and how they help us understand ourselves and others more. Session recording now available!

This session offers insights into supporting neurodivergent learners by examining their learning experiences and identifying strategies that align with their unique ways of processing information. By understanding the work of learning from their perspective, educators can implement practical approaches to reduce barriers and enhance accessibility. Participants will explore how to adapt teaching methods to support neurodivergent learners effectively, ensuring they can thrive in educational environments.

There has been renewed interest in making academic content more accessible in recent years, in line with new legislation like the European Accessibility Act, but it’s important that this content accessibility is matched by increased equity for disabled people working in the industry.

The Toolkit for Disability Equity aims to fill this gap, by addressing the needs of people working in the scholarly communications industry. Modelled on prior C4DISC Toolkits for Equity projects, the Disability Toolkit is something different: an interactive, easy-to-update online hub providing access to high-quality and accurate resources, curated and vetted by knowledgeable people, that both people with disabilities and those wanting to successfully recruit, hire, and retain them can use to help achieve those goals. Like other C4DISC Toolkits, the Disability Toolkit is openly available and offers good search capabilities, topic and format filtering, and a variety of resource types (text, video, audio) with accessibility affordances.

We will present and discuss the Toolkit’s first iteration, which includes resources, an FAQ, and personal stories. Attendees will also learn about the current work underway to expand the Toolkit. Participants will come away with a better idea of how they can help make the scholarly communications industry more disability-confident, as individuals, teams, and organizations.

In this session, we will look at different models of disability and examine how they impact our approaches to and understanding of accessibility. We will spent time developing a lexicon, or language, of disability and accessibility. The session will provide an opportunity to reflect on the idea of praxis (defined here as values-informed practice) and work towards laying a foundation for our own praxis of accessibility. The session will be a combination of theory, discussion, and reflection. It is appropriate both for folks new to conversations of accessibility and folks who have an established accessibility practice as everyone will be invited to start from where they are.

In this session, we will examine accessibility as a design consideration, building on the social model of disability. Although this is the second part in a 2-part series, participants do not need to have attended part 1. This session will start by briefly re-orientating folks to the key concepts of accessibility, disability, and praxis introduced in session 1. We will then examine design bias and spend some time reflecting on our own biases (everyone has them!) and how they inform our educational practices. Each participant will work towards developing a personal accessibility toolkit consisting of a collection of individual practices that align with our own values and teaching or work context. By the end of this session, participants will have some accessibility tools that they can implement in their own educational context.

The phrase “artificial intelligence” can be quite misleading, and the difference between intelligence and understanding can be disastrous. Join this exploration of the limits of machine intelligence. Session recording and slides now available!

ChatGPT (and other LLMs) can be an all-purpose tool, but why use a hammer when you need a screwdriver? In this workshop, we’ll build customized GPTs to better serve your goals. Session recording and slides now available!

Who are we and how do we show that in our writing? That is one of the big questions that surrounds how AI might be used in writing assignments and professional publications. How do we ensure that our voices and ideas are shining through and how do we determine when to acknowledge AI’s help in bringing our ideas to the page. This session will look at some of the discussions around ethical, responsible, and transparent AI use in writing assignments. There will be time allotted for questions, so please come ready to engage in discussion on these ideas. Session recording now available!

Students often struggle to engage with academic writing, expressing feelings of disconnection, discomfort and even dislike. Such feelings may lead some students to turn to AI, often employing it uncritically in order to complete their writing assignments, thus losing their voice. Humanizing the writing classroom through centering the element of voice may offer a great way to address these concerns. In light of AI concerns in particular, voice takes on even more importance as one of the aspects to writing that may distinguish human writing from AI writing. Focusing on voice may allow students to connect more meaningfully with academic writing as a mode of communication because it can make writing more personally relevant to them and expressive of their identities. Thus, it is our belief that by humanizing the writing classroom through centering voice, students may be less likely to rely solely on AI, and rather develop more critical approaches to their writing. However, providing effective instruction for students to develop their academic writing voice can be challenging. In this session, we will provide a brief background on voice in academic writing, and then share several activities that the presenters have tried with their students to help them (a) explore voice and its importance, especially in the age of AI, (b) reflect on their own developing voice constructions, and (c) develop more ownership over their writing. Session recording and slides now available!

In this three-part session series, we use the metaphoric structure: AI as a Growing Child. So in this first session we will describe AI’s impact on democracy as the “adolescent phase,” where it can be rebellious and unpredictable. Just as it would be irresponsible to let a young child adolescent play with a firearm, AI and elections are a volative mix. From deep-faked images of politicians to more subtle threats that can disable government infrastructure, this session demonstrates how AI tools can help saboteurs destabilize democracy. Participants will learn the weaknesses of commonly proposed solutions like AI watermarks as well as other solutions with a greater chance of safeguarding the democratic process. Session recording now available!

What is trauma? How can we shape our pedagogical practices to support students in their learning despite being impacted by trauma? We’ll explore these questions in this interactive session about Trauma-Informed Pedagogy. This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track. Session resources now available!

In this interactive session, we’ll test out various forms of targeted AI writing feedback. How can AI feedback be incorporated to support students’ development of their own voice and ideas and also to give students practice questioning plausible AI advice? Can we put AI in a limited place where it supplements the responses of human readers and stimulates student thinking without telling them what to write? We’ll explore student comments on how it felt to use AI feedback from recent pilots of the teacher-created app MyEssayFeedback.ai. Session recording and resources now available!

Sometimes caricatured as mere regurgitators of online content, tools like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion are more like a growing child that is facile at fabricating fresh ideas and novel imagery. A peek under the hood of these models will equip participants to grasp their special brand of creativity, along with their limits in representing diverse perspectives and potential for disinformation. Session recording now available!

This interactive workshop encourages participants to critically examine how and why generative AI tools were designed and what that means for their use in education. Topics of exploration include: Bias, Hallucinations, Exploitation of Human Labor, Data & Privacy, Digital Divide, Academic Integrity, and Intellectual Property Rights. As participants explore each of these topics, they will consider how to bring these critical issues into their practice and how to help prepare students to become critical AI users. Session recording and resources now available!

Maturity, whether in childhood development or in AI use, means knowing when to trust instinctual responses and when to check their unimpeded influence. Drawing on a range of sources from the mathematics of probability to Roman history, this workshop proposes a framework for sifting appropriate uses of AI from those that can cause undue harm, be they in healthcare, business, or education. (Spoiler: it’s not high- versus low-risk tasks!) Session recording now available!

From time immemorial, human beings have reached out to the world with words, hoping to connect and communicate. But in a world where the machine can do some things more effectively and efficiently, how do we now reckon with the art and science of writing? This conversation about AI is an invitation to brainstorm together about how to center our humanness in a increasingly automated world.

In this interactive workshop we will survey a range of AI-enabled research assistance apps that aim to help us find and analyze sources. We’ll look at general-purpose ones like Perplexity, ChatGPT4o, and Gemini as well as apps geared to academic research such as Elicit, Consensus, Keenious, ResearchRabbit, SciSpace, Scite_, and Undermind. In what ways do they facilitate source retrieval and analysis, and how can they also mislead us? What does wise use of these tools look like? Session recording now available!

How can we respond to the terror of AI? Laughter. Play. Let’s explore the possibilities and pitfalls of this platform with playful activities to help you dream up uses of AI that expand your creativity.

Session 1: Worlding the Future (90-120 minutes) Higher education globally is in a state of seemingly endless disruption and change. In this session, we will spend time examining our hopes and fears for the future of education, including, but not limited to, the impact of Generative AI. We will start with micro-storytelling activities to introduce speculation and help participants start thinking about the future. Then, in groups, we will collaboratively construct three future worlds: a world of hope, a world of despair, and a world of possibility, interweaving the good and bad. Session resources and recording now available!

In this session, Professor Sarah Elaine Eaton looks at the ethical implications of advancements in artificial intelligence and neurotechnology for education. We will look at threats to human dignity and mental integrity, as well as how advanced technology can be used to catalyze equity, inclusion, accessibility, and learner agency. This is not a session about how to use specific tools, but rather how to think broadly about the ethics of advanced technology for learning.

Many Generative AI conversations focus on academic integrity and preventative measures so that established assessment practices remain secure. However, it could be argued that rather than viewing generative AI as a detriment to assessment, it could be seen as a tool for revealing the hidden curriculum of assessment and identifying ineffective assessment designs (the assessments that are not doing what we think they are). This session will explore how Generative tools can be used to interrogate and improve assessment designs. Session recording now available!

This session will be a case study of how College Unbound worked with students to develop their institutional policy on the use of generative AI for students and faculty. From there, the session will explore through conversation, activities, and sharing how we can think and learn with students about how to critically use generative AI in general and in our respective disciplines. Session recording now available!

During my own personal journey to find belonging, it has been instrumental to be involved in, to create, and to nurture communities of practice and transformation. The mathematical foundations of networked ecosystems, with its relational and complex adaptive systems perspective, has informed this STEM community building work. However, for many years, undertaking social justice meant personal activism, teaching, service, and education research and excluded “mathematics research.” But mathematical and computational research for social justice is now gaining exciting momentum. Our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity is that we are both shaping the future of mathematics, computation, STEM and STEM education as well as redefining the community that should shape it. Creating mathematical research communities for social justice offers an exciting moment to build an inclusive and mutually supportive community focused on nurturing belonging, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, openness, and innovative mathematics. Session resources and recording now available!

Being in the Future (90 minutes) We will start with new micro-storytelling activities to introduce speculation. This session will focus on the personal and what existing in our speculative futures means. Participants will spend some time reflecting on who they are in the present and how much of that is contextual. Then we will explore the three worlds constructed in the first session. Each participant will choose a world and write a letter from the future, explaining who they are in this future, what they do. The goal of the session is to empower participants to understand where/how they will retain their sense of self in uncertain futures. Session recording now available!

In our universities in South Africa, Egypt, and Canada, we have been involved in creating guidelines and other resources about generative AI in academic work, and will share our experiences, successes, and challenges. We will invite participants in the session to share their own questions, concerns, and experiences related to resources and guidelines on generative AI in post-secondary or other educational settings. Session resources and recording now available!

AI literacy is more than learning how to code. It’s about critically examining and using AI ethically and effectively. In our session, we’ll break down what it means to be AI literate and explore an AI Literacy Framework designed for educators. We’ll cover seven key areas, discuss the essential skills for each, and share practical resources. Join in for an animated discussion and prepare to dig in for some fun activities. Session recording and resources now available!

In this session, we will explore the current AI moment with participants from an entangled pedagogy perspective. We begin by sharing how this moment might be challenging some of the things we believe about education, and where problematic assumptions or unconvincing solutions are occurring. Using examples of institutional responses to AI, crowdsourced from participants, we will then trace where possibilities for agency might lie in this moment of complexity. We don’t promise to solve any problems, and that’s part of the point. Many educational problems cannot be solved, and we might, instead, hold those problems open in order to better understand them and find ways to negotiate them, in collaboration with others. Session recording now available!

This session with engage participants in the use of metaphor to develop critical AI literacies, building on the presenters’ co-authored article with the same title, published here: https://openpraxis.org/articles/10.55982/openpraxis.16.1.631 Session recording and resources now available!

This workshop will engage participants in thinking about the potential roles of students in open pedagogy and the creation of open educational resources after sharing two case studies done at UCT. There will also be interaction around shifting hierarchies and changing the traditional power balance in HE. Student partnerships are seen as a pathway to inclusion and a means to address injustice in the classroom and in course materials. These inclusive practices seem essential for future higher education to be just and sustainable. Session recording now available!

This 1-hour workshop will address how AI has been used for audio deep fakes, but can you identify one if you heard it? Meanwhile, like all areas of generative AI, the audio field is exploding with options. We’ll survey the AI for audio and podcasting toolbox and we’ll play around with some of those tools.

In this session, we will explore the current AI moment with participants from an entangled pedagogy perspective. We begin by sharing how this moment might be challenging some of the things we believe about education, and where problematic assumptions or unconvincing solutions are occurring. Using examples of institutional responses to AI, crowdsourced from participants, we will then trace where possibilities for agency might lie in this moment of complexity.

We don’t promise to solve any problems, and that’s part of the point. Many educational problems cannot be solved, and we might, instead, hold those problems open in order to better understand them and find ways to negotiate them, in collaboration with others.

Join us for an hour of supporting each other’s writing… quietly… where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we’ve accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

Join us for the first community building session — get to know other participants more deeply, imagine how to make the most of your MYFest experience together, get support on some of your pressing challenges this year.

TBA
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

For this session, we will be using a Voice & Silence framework to explore how we ourselves, or those we educate or support, use Voice or Silence.
This framework is a four-quadrant model which distinguishes between productive und unproductive forms of Voice and Silence. It originated from the work of Amy C. Edmondson and Tijs Besieux, with the intention of helping foster high-quality conversations.
Whether in a social, traditional work or educational environment, we all share the challenges of providing the best possible balance of equal voice, diversity of thought, reflection and critical information. This framework can offer essential insights into how inclusive our meetings, training or exchanges are and why.

The Silence & Voice is a 2 part series, with asynchronous work in the middle. Again, if you are unable to attend the 1st session, it won’t make sense to attend the 2nd session as you will be missing the foundational work, and the independent writing on the break day. However, if you can only attend the first session, you’re welcome to. Click on the Session title to get to the registration link.

Asynchronous preparation for Session 2
Writing of experiments using a dedicated Google slide deck

Join us for an hour of supporting each other’s writing… quietly… where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we’ve accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

Session 2: In this follow-up session, we will be • sharing our experiments with each other • cross-checking the experiments with the insights from Session 1 • refining and fine-tuning our experiments to plug-and-play Takeaways At the end of both sessions, you will have a more diverse understanding of how people contribute and what they need to do so productively. In addition, you will have a collection of experiments to use for your own work environments. In this follow-up session, we will be • sharing our experiments with each other • cross-checking the experiments with the insights from Session 1 • refining and fine-tuning our experiments to plug-and-play Takeaways At the end of both sessions, you will have a more diverse understanding of how people contribute and what they need to do so productively. In addition, you will have a collection of experiments to use for your own work environments.

This interactive session will look at poetry and how it can be used to support reflective practice and learning in higher education and beyond. Session recording and slides now available!

Join us for an hour of supporting each other’s writing… quietly… where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we’ve accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

A Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Circle, is an opportunity for individuals to come together virtually to share their love of reading.

Unlike a traditional book club, where everyone brings a commonly read book, these BYOB circles invite anyone to come with any book that they have read, or are currently reading, based on a central theme.

With the support of a facilitator, these events are meant to create community, inspire new reading and learning, and engage with one another in fun and unique ways.

Join Maha Bali & Mia Zamora in deepening their equity/care research to integrate the importance of authenticity in Socially Just Distributed Care. We will invite you to share your own stories and reflections on our model, and hopefully incorporate some of your voice in our upcoming writing.
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

Join us for an hour of supporting each other’s writing… quietly… where we will kick off with 5 minutes of inspiration, give everyone about 50 minutes to work on what is important to them right now, and have 5 minutes to celebrate what we’ve accomplished today. This group is dedicated to anyone who is working on a writing project of any kind: you can work on a peer-reviewed paper, grant application, syllabus, even a really tricky email, even your creative work, a poem you want to capture, lyrics for your next song 🙂

A Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Circle, is an opportunity for individuals to come together virtually to share their love of reading.

Unlike a traditional book club, where everyone brings a commonly read book, these BYOB circles invite anyone to come with any book that they have read, or are currently reading, based on a central theme.

With the support of a facilitator, these events are meant to create community, inspire new reading and learning, and engage with one another in fun and unique ways.

Join us for a 4 day collaborative writing experience. Using a prompt, you are invited to add your part of the story. This is a collaborative story with multiple authors including you. Drop in at any point between 21 July and 24 July and add your part of the story. Come back throughout the period and see where the story goes. 

This is an open novel writing experience for MYFest participants.

Held- July 21-July 24

Click on the name of the event to get the link for the collaborative document we will all work on.

Join our workshop to see a secure, community-driven, decentralized online space in action! We are excited to invite you to our upcoming workshop, where we shall explore our journey building a self-hosted social network service, HiA Network, and why we deem such actions as crucial to how our communities engage in virtual online spaces and how we improve our data ownership and dividend. Before joining the workshop, please take a few minutes to sign up for an account on our platform [https://www.hostedinafrica.com/mysfest-with-hia]. We have created a pre workshop space for attendees so that we can start the conversation early, introduce you to our workshop set up in order to provide you with a truly bespoke experience during the session.

Conflict is something most of us shy away from, but it is also inevitable. It makes us uncomfortable and unsure, and unresolved conflict can lead to negative mental health consequences, destructive or toxic community spaces, loss of community connections members, and limitations on solutions and opportunities. But not all conflict is negative; conflict can be generative, and there are constructive ways to resolve conflict that contribute to the health of organizations, communities, teams and individuals. Join us for this conversation about how conflict manifests at organizational, team and individual levels, how and why we respond to conflict negatively, and generative, healthy approaches to conflict with the goal of transforming our understanding of conflict to create better communities. Together, we will build a framework for understanding conflict, its impact, and chart impactful strategies for resolution. We will use theory and strategy and invite lived experiences. Session recording now available!

Though historically (and in popular media), Tarot has been popularized as a tool for divination, it actually provides a powerful tool for storytelling, reflection, and self-discovery. The major arcana consists of a collection of 22 archetypes that encompass major life themes including creation, stability, loss, solitude, curiosity, healing, transition, balance, justice, wisdom, patience, and hope. Drawing on radical and queer approaches to tarot, this session will introduce participants to the major arcana and the questions that these archetypes provoke. Participants will be invited to participate in a 22-day asynchronous autoethnography project focused on daily reflections, storytelling, and activities based on each of the cards.

This is a 22-day asynchronous autoethnography project focused around the major arcana of the tarot. Each day, participants will receive an email focused on one of the cards of the Major Arcana. They will be provided with a brief introduction to the card and its themes and provided with reflection journal questions related to the card’s theme in relation to higher education contexts and practices. Please click to open the page where you will find the link to access or sign up for the daily prompts.

Emotion29 is a netprov, networked improv or online collaborative writing game, about the emerging feelings in our world today. The game has two parts: emotional data collection and emotional data study. In the first half, players answer creative prompts about the new emotion they’ve been feeling lately. In the second half, donning on the hat of emotional scientists, they write observations as they review the data. What is the new emotion? Help us explore E29 in this collaborative writing game! Session recording now available!

Join us for a session to share your reflections on your experience in MYFest24 and envision together future Equity Unbound offerings for the community.

Session Postponed. New Date and Time TBA. Join Maha Bali & Mia Zamora to explore the spectrum of a “socially just praxis” related to their current research. We will invite participants to reflect and share their own stories of acting as: Ally, Advocate and/or Activist. We will discuss and reflect together on how we can move towards “Collective Socially Just Care”.
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

This hour-long interactive workshop will introduce 3 approaches to working effectively with change-resistors & work through a case study together, with plenty of time for reflection and sharing. Outcome: lowered frustration for trainers and aspiring change-makers. Session recording, worksheets, and slides now available!

In the face of systems of oppression, it’s easy to feel down-trodden and hopeless. In this workshop, we will identify types of power, what our power-style might be, and build solidarity and mental well-being for/with one another. Session recording and slides now available!

In this session, Professor Sarah Elaine Eaton looks at the ethical implications of advancements in artificial intelligence and neurotechnology for education. We will look at threats to human dignity and mental integrity, as well as how advanced technology can be used to catalyze equity, inclusion, accessibility, and learner agency. This is not a session about how to use specific tools, but rather how to think broadly about the ethics of advanced technology for learning.

Inspired by frameworks from Nan Wehipeihana (2019) and the Anti-Racism Network (2021), this session will share a framework for decolonizing academic integrity policies and practices that asks us to question western epistemologies and consider multiple ways of knowing. Session resources and recording now available!

This session explores reflective teaching, focusing on critical pedagogy and diverse student needs, leveraging lenses and tools (including AI) for actionable insights and fostering incremental pedagogical changes.

During my own personal journey to find belonging, it has been instrumental to be involved in, to create, and to nurture communities of practice and transformation. The mathematical foundations of networked ecosystems, with its relational and complex adaptive systems perspective, has informed this STEM community building work. However, for many years, undertaking social justice meant personal activism, teaching, service, and education research and excluded “mathematics research.” But mathematical and computational research for social justice is now gaining exciting momentum. Our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity is that we are both shaping the future of mathematics, computation, STEM and STEM education as well as redefining the community that should shape it. Creating mathematical research communities for social justice offers an exciting moment to build an inclusive and mutually supportive community focused on nurturing belonging, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, openness, and innovative mathematics. Session resources and recording now available!

This session is the first of three in a pathway, though participants can attend one without attending the others. Come along and explore, discuss and reflect on elements of partnership. Join Heather and Jennie and student-partner guests to consider how partnership might work as a driver for social, institutional and individual change. This session will focus on framing partnership around ideas of space, power and impact and combine individual, group and follow up activities into discussions and a reflection on what it might mean to work in partnership.

Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

This session is a follow on from Partnership: Space, Power, Impact though participants don’t need to have attended the first to engage. For this session, join Jennie and Heather and bring along your own conceptualisations of knowledge and experience on working with students, and others, in partnership. This session will include multiple ways to engage with the topic and also give participants a chance to bring some new thinking back to their own work, context and partnerships. Session recording now available!

In just 90-minutes, join us on an exhilarating journey to sample and explore the Enabling Accessible Blended Learning for Equity (ENABLE) Framework that aims to embed equity into design processes. Using the world cafe format and experiential methods, collaborate with us to improve and advance this agenda. Session recording and slides now available!

Participants don’t need to have attended the previous two. For this session, join Heather and Jennie to explore the pedagogical, research and scholarship anchors that look at elements of and impact from partnership. We will particularly be examining how these frameworks, research and pedagogies might be used to enhance social justice and liberation. Participants will be invited to bring along their own anchors, favourite pedagogical frameworks and any and all questions, reflections and musings. Session recording now available!

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the concept of a learning sanctuary and examine trauma and agency through the lens of recent student protests. We will focus on heartful listening, a compassionate and empowering approach that emphasizes humility, community, and understanding, essential for creating a learning sanctuary. Additionally, we will discuss how trauma affects students’ lives and learning, offering strategies to help them reclaim their agency. By analyzing recent student protests, we aim to gain insights into the collective trauma and calls for justice driving these movements, enabling us to better support our students.

We will also discuss the notions of safety and discomfort in learning, exploring the meaning and implications of the pedagogy of discomfort. This includes promoting reflective spaces and using restorative practices to address conflicts and rebuild trust. By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped with practical tools to create inclusive, supportive, and responsive educational environments that foster growth and understanding.

This session with engage participants in the use of metaphor to develop critical AI literacies, building on the presenters’ co-authored article with the same title, published here: https://openpraxis.org/articles/10.55982/openpraxis.16.1.631 Session recording and resources now available!

Rebecca will introduce the concepts of sociocracy and intentional community, and will describe the benefits of a governance system that is not consensus nor majority rules. She will touch on how an introduction to some of the sociocracy concepts can help students be more effective at group work. Although not necessary, you will get a little more out of the workshop if you do a little pre-reading/watching prior to the workshop. Session resources and recording now available!

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

This is part 2 of a two-part series.

Join me for an insightful webinar where we explore the fundamentals of alternative grading, also known as ungrading. I will provide an overview of the key concepts and benefits of ungrading, followed by a recap of the latest trends and insights from The Grading Conference (June 2024). The session will delve into the intersectionality of ungrading with open pedagogy, critical pedagogy, kindness, trust, and artificial intelligence. This session is perfect for educators seeking innovative assessment methods to enhance student learning and engagement.

Building on the introduction to alternative grading, this webinar focuses on the practical application of ungrading concepts. Participants will engage in hands-on activities, including designing lessons using backwards design, practicing reflection and feedback techniques, and redesigning syllabus components to incorporate ungrading principles. Through collaborative exercises and discussions, attendees will gain practical skills and insights to implement ungrading in their classrooms effectively.

Come and dance with us!

In our first synchronous meet-up we’ll get to know each other and decide what we would like to do together. People who have done readers theater before can share their experiences, and we can decide what kinds of plays we want to read together for MYFest24, and we can also brainstorm some plays we might want to write together. And, of course, we’ll read a play. Or two!

This will be a continuous lowkey way to capture the beautiful quotes, concepts and other ephemera we come across. You can share your favourite quotes of all time, or just drop in something you’ve seen on the day. It will be a spot to recharge and be inspired by amazing things others have found. At the end of MYFest, we could collectively create something from what we’ve discovered. Click on the name of the session to see the link to the Padlet.

This is the Wisdom of Fools website: MYFest24.LauraGibbs.net
This is the asynchronous MYFest-long event. We will have a month of asynchronous activities and prompts in June, followed by a workshop in July when we can talk together about what we’ve learned and decide where we want to go next.

Join us for a low-key session dedicated to baking and cooking. Bring your own recipe to bake/cook in your kitchen and share with other participants. Recipes can be also be shared via Padlet or the Slack baking-cooking channel before the session so that others can buy ingredients to try out a new recipe during the session. Feel free to join and leave at any time during the 90-minute session, and of course, family members are very welcome! Even if you don’t want to bake or cook during the session, we encourage you to come and chat with the group. If participants find the session enjoyable, we’ll be happy to organize a second baking and cooking session.

For details, see the MYFest Readers Theater website https://sites.google.com/view/ccreaderstheater/myfest24
All ages welcome!

We’re devoting our Wisdom of Fools synchronous session to stories about donkeys. We’ll read some folktales about donkeys and collaboratively adapt and write up the ones participants like best in a readers theater script starring donkeys. After the session, participants can continue working on the script asynchronously as little or much as they wish, and we’ll definitely read the finished script together in a future MYFest24 readers theater session. This is a low-key, fun, and creative session for all ages. Family members are very welcome!

For details, see the MYFest Readers Theater website https://sites.google.com/view/ccreaderstheater/myfest24
All ages welcome!

This session will be hands on where you’ll get the chance to draw/create art. Though there is absolutely no experience required and it is open to all skill levels, we ask that you prepare to be fully immersed! This means preparing a few materials in advance and blocking out time in your schedule for the entire session so you can get the most out of this experience. Neuro-Art is a form of sketching or doodling that can be used to relax and shift perceptions and experience around a particular issue, belief, emotion or bodily sensation. This introduction will show the simplest method/technique in order for you to have an insight into the process. It will not give you a complete experience of the full method, but is designed to offer a sense of the possibilities so that you can go and explore further for yourself or with a trained therapist if you enjoy the practice. This is an interactive session and you will get the most benefit if you engage with the process and let it unfold.

This interactive workshop will open a dynamic conversation about open and liberatory education design. How does our work help to accelerate liberatory ed, or maintain current structures and slow it down? How might we start to envision important integration work in order to create a more powerful foundation for an anti-oppressive educational landscape — one that allows all learners to become self-actualized shapers of a more just and sustainable world? Session resources and recording now available!

This session will start with a short mindfulness meditation and then a short discussion about the benefits and different types of journaling. We will have a short activity on the ways each of you can incorporate a journaling practice in your life. Afterwards the remainder of the session will be dedicated for journaling alone (but together) using prompts provided by the facilitator and beautiful, relaxing background music. Come and join us for a self care, wellbeing and joyful hour that you dedicate to your self. You can bring your family with you.

Join us to use sounds of the world to foster learning!

This interactive session will be the seeds of a participatory storytelling project. We will be considering the feeling of “freedom” when we learn. We invite everyone to attend, reflect, and share stories, which will in turn become the basis of a beautiful mosaic of narratives dedicated to liberatory learning. (All are welcome — Part 1 is not required in order to jump in on the conversation and enjoy/participate in Part 2). Session recording now available!

For details, see the MYFest Readers Theater website https://sites.google.com/view/ccreaderstheater/myfest24

All ages welcome!

This session will start with a short intro about the different forms of meditation and a reflection on which type resonates most with you. You will also get to hear some tips and tricks for how to incorporate a meditation practice in your life, to the degree that you want/need. We will then of course meditate together. You will be guided through a gratitude meditation. Come and join us for a self case, wellbeing and joyful hour that you dedicate to your self. You can bring your family with you.

Emotion29 is a netprov, networked improv or online collaborative writing game, about the emerging feelings in our world today. The game has two parts: emotional data collection and emotional data study. In the first half, players answer creative prompts about the new emotion they’ve been feeling lately. In the second half, donning on the hat of emotional scientists, they write observations as they review the data. What is the new emotion? Help us explore E29 in this collaborative writing game! Session recording now available!

TBA
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

Join Maha Bali & Mia Zamora in deepening their equity/care research to integrate the importance of authenticity in Socially Just Distributed Care. We will invite you to share your own stories and reflections on our model, and hopefully incorporate some of your voice in our upcoming writing.
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

In this session, Professor Sarah Elaine Eaton looks at the ethical implications of advancements in artificial intelligence and neurotechnology for education. We will look at threats to human dignity and mental integrity, as well as how advanced technology can be used to catalyze equity, inclusion, accessibility, and learner agency. This is not a session about how to use specific tools, but rather how to think broadly about the ethics of advanced technology for learning.

During my own personal journey to find belonging, it has been instrumental to be involved in, to create, and to nurture communities of practice and transformation. The mathematical foundations of networked ecosystems, with its relational and complex adaptive systems perspective, has informed this STEM community building work. However, for many years, undertaking social justice meant personal activism, teaching, service, and education research and excluded “mathematics research.” But mathematical and computational research for social justice is now gaining exciting momentum. Our greatest challenge and our greatest opportunity is that we are both shaping the future of mathematics, computation, STEM and STEM education as well as redefining the community that should shape it. Creating mathematical research communities for social justice offers an exciting moment to build an inclusive and mutually supportive community focused on nurturing belonging, collaboration, interdisciplinarity, openness, and innovative mathematics. Session resources and recording now available!

This session is a follow on from Partnership: Space, Power, Impact though participants don’t need to have attended the first to engage. For this session, join Jennie and Heather and bring along your own conceptualisations of knowledge and experience on working with students, and others, in partnership. This session will include multiple ways to engage with the topic and also give participants a chance to bring some new thinking back to their own work, context and partnerships. Session recording now available!

Join our workshop to see a secure, community-driven, decentralized online space in action! We are excited to invite you to our upcoming workshop, where we shall explore our journey building a self-hosted social network service, HiA Network, and why we deem such actions as crucial to how our communities engage in virtual online spaces and how we improve our data ownership and dividend. Before joining the workshop, please take a few minutes to sign up for an account on our platform [https://www.hostedinafrica.com/mysfest-with-hia]. We have created a pre workshop space for attendees so that we can start the conversation early, introduce you to our workshop set up in order to provide you with a truly bespoke experience during the session.

In just 90-minutes, join us on an exhilarating journey to sample and explore the Enabling Accessible Blended Learning for Equity (ENABLE) Framework that aims to embed equity into design processes. Using the world cafe format and experiential methods, collaborate with us to improve and advance this agenda. Session recording and slides now available!

Participants don’t need to have attended the previous two. For this session, join Heather and Jennie to explore the pedagogical, research and scholarship anchors that look at elements of and impact from partnership. We will particularly be examining how these frameworks, research and pedagogies might be used to enhance social justice and liberation. Participants will be invited to bring along their own anchors, favourite pedagogical frameworks and any and all questions, reflections and musings. Session recording now available!

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the concept of a learning sanctuary and examine trauma and agency through the lens of recent student protests. We will focus on heartful listening, a compassionate and empowering approach that emphasizes humility, community, and understanding, essential for creating a learning sanctuary. Additionally, we will discuss how trauma affects students’ lives and learning, offering strategies to help them reclaim their agency. By analyzing recent student protests, we aim to gain insights into the collective trauma and calls for justice driving these movements, enabling us to better support our students.

We will also discuss the notions of safety and discomfort in learning, exploring the meaning and implications of the pedagogy of discomfort. This includes promoting reflective spaces and using restorative practices to address conflicts and rebuild trust. By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped with practical tools to create inclusive, supportive, and responsive educational environments that foster growth and understanding.

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

This is part 2 of a two-part series.

Belonging has become an “answer” to a number of identified issues in higher education, from inclusion to systemic barriers to low student engagement. This session will present a framework, drawn from the work of Cobb and Krownapple, that might be used to ask critical and reflective questions of the activities put in place to “create belonging”. We will focus on exploring and reflecting on both the framework and its potential application in the participants’ own contexts.

There has been renewed interest in making academic content more accessible in recent years, in line with new legislation like the European Accessibility Act, but it’s important that this content accessibility is matched by increased equity for disabled people working in the industry.

The Toolkit for Disability Equity aims to fill this gap, by addressing the needs of people working in the scholarly communications industry. Modelled on prior C4DISC Toolkits for Equity projects, the Disability Toolkit is something different: an interactive, easy-to-update online hub providing access to high-quality and accurate resources, curated and vetted by knowledgeable people, that both people with disabilities and those wanting to successfully recruit, hire, and retain them can use to help achieve those goals. Like other C4DISC Toolkits, the Disability Toolkit is openly available and offers good search capabilities, topic and format filtering, and a variety of resource types (text, video, audio) with accessibility affordances.

We will present and discuss the Toolkit’s first iteration, which includes resources, an FAQ, and personal stories. Attendees will also learn about the current work underway to expand the Toolkit. Participants will come away with a better idea of how they can help make the scholarly communications industry more disability-confident, as individuals, teams, and organizations.

Session Postponed. New Date and Time TBA. Join Maha Bali & Mia Zamora to explore the spectrum of a “socially just praxis” related to their current research. We will invite participants to reflect and share their own stories of acting as: Ally, Advocate and/or Activist. We will discuss and reflect together on how we can move towards “Collective Socially Just Care”.
Note: This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

Theresa Destrebecq will be facilitating a book circle on the book Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin. Book circles have maximum 18 participants, and we try to build community by maintaining the same set of people over the entire period. If you are planning to attend this book circle, you will need to fill out a separate registration form. Click of the session title to get to the registration link.

What is trauma? How can we shape our pedagogical practices to support students in their learning despite being impacted by trauma? We’ll explore these questions in this interactive session about Trauma-Informed Pedagogy. This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track. Session resources now available!

Trigger warnings can take many forms. If used alone to warn about sensitive material, they may have no effect or even be harmful. A broader, preventive approach and a careful response for when triggers do occur are explored in this interactive session. Session resources now available!

This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.

“Indigenous students can have their learning especially impacted by trauma. Non-Indigenous teachers may not be aware of the effect their teaching approaches can have on Indigenous students. This interactive session intends to shine a light on ways to better support Indigenous learners.

This session is part of a track but you can attend it on its own without attending the full track.”

This is an invitation to participate in a live Zoom session. The session is part of a research study whose purpose is to include student, educator and educational developer perspectives in the process of co-creating guiding principles for academic integrity AI policies by exploring equity pedagogies. *Separate Registration Required. Click on the session name to get the link to register

Join us for this reflective and creative workshop based on the Higher Education for Good chapter, Counters to Despair. This collection of prose poems will form the basis of our thinking and actions. How do we manage to outwit or outrun our creeping despair in the face of so much gone awry in education and the world? What stands between us and despair? And even more importantly, how do we build and sustain counters to despair that keep us moving towards more peace, equity, and care in ourselves, our institutions and the world. We’ll use structured dialogues, free writing and open dialogue to articulate, share and bolster our defenses against despair. Session resources now available!

This interactive workshop will open a dynamic conversation about open and liberatory education design. How does our work help to accelerate liberatory ed, or maintain current structures and slow it down? How might we start to envision important integration work in order to create a more powerful foundation for an anti-oppressive educational landscape — one that allows all learners to become self-actualized shapers of a more just and sustainable world? Session resources and recording now available!

This session is a follow on from Partnership: Space, Power, Impact though participants don’t need to have attended the first to engage. For this session, join Jennie and Heather and bring along your own conceptualisations of knowledge and experience on working with students, and others, in partnership. This session will include multiple ways to engage with the topic and also give participants a chance to bring some new thinking back to their own work, context and partnerships. Session recording now available!

Participants don’t need to have attended the previous two. For this session, join Heather and Jennie to explore the pedagogical, research and scholarship anchors that look at elements of and impact from partnership. We will particularly be examining how these frameworks, research and pedagogies might be used to enhance social justice and liberation. Participants will be invited to bring along their own anchors, favourite pedagogical frameworks and any and all questions, reflections and musings. Session recording now available!

In this collaborative and interactive session, participants will learn the utility of imagination practice as a tool for liberation. Drawing on the works of Tricia Hersey, author of “Rest is Resistance”, participants will understand how current systems of oppression limit our ability and willingness to imagine what is possible. The goal of this session is to help participants realize what it exactly means to reclaim the dream space and how does this impact our work related to social justice and equity-minded education. Additionally, participants will understand how the power of dreaming can be used as a tool for healing and joy. Session recording now available!

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the concept of a learning sanctuary and examine trauma and agency through the lens of recent student protests. We will focus on heartful listening, a compassionate and empowering approach that emphasizes humility, community, and understanding, essential for creating a learning sanctuary. Additionally, we will discuss how trauma affects students’ lives and learning, offering strategies to help them reclaim their agency. By analyzing recent student protests, we aim to gain insights into the collective trauma and calls for justice driving these movements, enabling us to better support our students.

We will also discuss the notions of safety and discomfort in learning, exploring the meaning and implications of the pedagogy of discomfort. This includes promoting reflective spaces and using restorative practices to address conflicts and rebuild trust. By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped with practical tools to create inclusive, supportive, and responsive educational environments that foster growth and understanding.

This interactive session will be the seeds of a participatory storytelling project. We will be considering the feeling of “freedom” when we learn. We invite everyone to attend, reflect, and share stories, which will in turn become the basis of a beautiful mosaic of narratives dedicated to liberatory learning. (All are welcome — Part 1 is not required in order to jump in on the conversation and enjoy/participate in Part 2). Session recording now available!

This workshop will engage participants in thinking about the potential roles of students in open pedagogy and the creation of open educational resources after sharing two case studies done at UCT. There will also be interaction around shifting hierarchies and changing the traditional power balance in HE. Student partnerships are seen as a pathway to inclusion and a means to address injustice in the classroom and in course materials. These inclusive practices seem essential for future higher education to be just and sustainable. Session recording now available!

Though historically (and in popular media), Tarot has been popularized as a tool for divination, it actually provides a powerful tool for storytelling, reflection, and self-discovery. The major arcana consists of a collection of 22 archetypes that encompass major life themes including creation, stability, loss, solitude, curiosity, healing, transition, balance, justice, wisdom, patience, and hope. Drawing on radical and queer approaches to tarot, this session will introduce participants to the major arcana and the questions that these archetypes provoke. Participants will be invited to participate in a 22-day asynchronous autoethnography project focused on daily reflections, storytelling, and activities based on each of the cards.

This is a 22-day asynchronous autoethnography project focused around the major arcana of the tarot. Each day, participants will receive an email focused on one of the cards of the Major Arcana. They will be provided with a brief introduction to the card and its themes and provided with reflection journal questions related to the card’s theme in relation to higher education contexts and practices. Please click to open the page where you will find the link to access or sign up for the daily prompts.

Rebecca will introduce the concepts of sociocracy and intentional community, and will describe the benefits of a governance system that is not consensus nor majority rules. She will touch on how an introduction to some of the sociocracy concepts can help students be more effective at group work. Although not necessary, you will get a little more out of the workshop if you do a little pre-reading/watching prior to the workshop. Session resources and recording now available!

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

Critical Pedagogy is usually rooted (and rightfully so) in the lived experiences of the oppressed. In this two-day workshop we will explore together Critical Pedagogy from the point of view of the post-colonial oppressor student. By dissecting the paradox of rich oppressor and oppressed student / Global South citizen , we will attempt to challenge the binary and explore the nuances of these intersecting positionalities in our classrooms.

This is part 2 of a two-part series.

“What can Gareth Southgate teach higher education practitioners? What can art and design signature pedagogies teach other fields of higher education instruction? This interactive presentation will challenge the traditional silos of educational practice, urging educators to broaden their professional networks and embrace innovative practices from various teaching environments. Drawing from a wealth of case studies and personal experiences, I will discuss how practices often confined to one educational sector or context can revolutionize learning and teaching in another. By widening out their professional horizon, university practitioners can creatively adopt and adapt novel ideas and approaches from other contexts enhancing the way they engage with and support our diverse student cohorts. The core message of my talk will revolve around the concept of professional cross-pollination not just as a theory, but as a practical approach to enhance higher education practices and design more inclusive learning experiences.” Session recording now available!

Belonging has become an “answer” to a number of identified issues in higher education, from inclusion to systemic barriers to low student engagement. This session will present a framework, drawn from the work of Cobb and Krownapple, that might be used to ask critical and reflective questions of the activities put in place to “create belonging”. We will focus on exploring and reflecting on both the framework and its potential application in the participants’ own contexts.

Join me for an insightful webinar where we explore the fundamentals of alternative grading, also known as ungrading. I will provide an overview of the key concepts and benefits of ungrading, followed by a recap of the latest trends and insights from The Grading Conference (June 2024). The session will delve into the intersectionality of ungrading with open pedagogy, critical pedagogy, kindness, trust, and artificial intelligence. This session is perfect for educators seeking innovative assessment methods to enhance student learning and engagement.

Collaborative Experiential Learning is an educational approach that involves learners working together to engage in hands-on, real-world reasoning and decision-making. This method is particularly effective for complex problem-solving as it encourages creativity, critical thinking, and the integration of diverse perspectives. Participants will engage in interactive activities that demonstrate collaborative experiential learning methods, fostering innovation and practical solutions in educational and professional contexts.

Building on the introduction to alternative grading, this webinar focuses on the practical application of ungrading concepts. Participants will engage in hands-on activities, including designing lessons using backwards design, practicing reflection and feedback techniques, and redesigning syllabus components to incorporate ungrading principles. Through collaborative exercises and discussions, attendees will gain practical skills and insights to implement ungrading in their classrooms effectively.

Note: For this session, please bring a skein of yarn or a similar thread long enough to use in our hands-on finger weaving/knitting activity.
Get ready for a fun, active, and collaborative experience!
In this first of three sessions, we explore the use of threads, threaded crafts, and fiber arts within the educational landscape. As educators/learners from diverse backgrounds and experiences, we engage in discussions about the integration of threads in our educational practices and beyond, specifically addressing the following key questions: 1) Have you ever incorporated thread-based activities into your teaching/learning, or outside of educational settings? 2) In what contexts have you utilized these activities? 3) For what purposes have you used threads, both as a metaphor and in actual practice? Building on both literature and real-life experiences shared by the facilitator, we explore how various educators have creatively incorporated fiber crafts in both educational and research contexts. This discussion will pave the way for an experiential activity involving finger weaving/knitting, allowing participants to experience firsthand the multisensory and interconnected nature of learning. This approach goes beyond cognitive functions, exploring how deeper learning intertwines with social, emotional, and embodied experiences — what we perceive through the tactility of working with threads.
Note: For this session, please bring a skein of yarn or a similar thread long enough to use in our hands-on finger weaving/knitting activity. Get ready for a fun, active, and collaborative experience!

In today’s technological landscape, where Generative AI and deep learning (as a subset of machine learning) are reshaping how we interact with information and each other, we explore the concept of deeper learning and how it fits within the educational landscape for both learners and educators. In this second session, we build on our experiences with finger weaving/knitting from the previous session to examine how the embodied metaphor of acquiring and practicing a fiber craft is linked to deeper learning. This form of learning, while serving as an umbrella term for competencies of 21st- century learners, is also described as emerging at the intersection of mastery, identity, and creativity. Throughout this session, we also explore the value of incorporating tactile activities into educational settings, discussing how educators can use multisensory approaches to learning with their students. Our goal is to balance the traditional focus on cognitive skills with more holistic, hands-on learning experiences, thereby re-humanizing education in our increasingly AI-driven world.

Weaving Deeper Learning through Reflexivity: In this final session of our three-part series, we shift our focus to the role of reflexivity within the context of deeper learning, using the metaphor and practice of tapestry-weaving to explore how we can integrate our experiences, knowledge, and insights to create a holistic meaning, much like a weaver who constantly evaluates and adjusts their work to create a whole tapestry of multiple separate, but interconnected threads. Key topics of discussion include: 1) The concept of reflexivity and how it compares to reflectivity. 2) The role and importance of reflexivity in education for both educators and learners. 3) Practical strategies for incorporating reflexivity into teaching and learning practices. In this session, participants will be invited to engage in exercises that mirror the weaving process, enabling them to “thread together” their experiences from all three sessions to create a holistic view of their learning journey. We also explore how reflective and reflexive practices can be applied in diverse educational contexts.

Come and dance with us!

This will be a continuous lowkey way to capture the beautiful quotes, concepts and other ephemera we come across. You can share your favourite quotes of all time, or just drop in something you’ve seen on the day. It will be a spot to recharge and be inspired by amazing things others have found. At the end of MYFest, we could collectively create something from what we’ve discovered. Click on the name of the session to see the link to the Padlet.

Healing circles are a means for people to come together for meaningful connection through deep listening and compassion. Using poetry, and other forms of creative expression, healing circles invite participants to move out of intellectual consciousness into emotional consciousness, connecting more deeply with what’s in their hearts as well as their minds. Spaces are limited so separate registration is required. Please click on the session name to find the link of the registration form.

To live a meaningful, happy and fulfilled life, we as adults take the charge and responsibility to heal ourselves from whatever made us disconnected from our essence. We take the lead to restore our authentic self to accept who we are and acknowledge our unmet needs and unattended emotions; some of us feel unsafe, unseen, unaccepted or unworthy; some feel not good enough to show up to the world as who we are; gradually and subconsciously we developed a survival persona with its various coping mechanisms to feel safe and significant.

Some of us have developed a selfless pattern of behaviors and some have developed selfish patterns. Becoming awakened through pain and struggles, some of us are ready to see and perceive that self-kindness is crucial for health & growth. Our journey with understanding our 8 capacities gives us safe spaces to reach out to ourselves and expand our inner wisdom to restore our self-concept and reconstruct our beliefs; a new set of beliefs that enables us to break the cycle of unhealthy patterns and move forward in-life.

I have created the need for developing the 8 capacities within us out of my own personal wisdom of how self compassion is crucial to receiving and living a healthier life. I was able to connect, feel and heal. I have progressed on reclaiming my inner wisdom and enjoyed a new reality of becoming self compassionate. Recording and slides now available.

Join us for a low-key session dedicated to baking and cooking. Bring your own recipe to bake/cook in your kitchen and share with other participants. Recipes can be also be shared via Padlet or the Slack baking-cooking channel before the session so that others can buy ingredients to try out a new recipe during the session. Feel free to join and leave at any time during the 90-minute session, and of course, family members are very welcome! Even if you don’t want to bake or cook during the session, we encourage you to come and chat with the group. If participants find the session enjoyable, we’ll be happy to organize a second baking and cooking session.

How many of us are stressed, frazzled, frequently overwhelmed and are going about every day in that state? I know! I see you and I feel you! Life is way too fast paced now. During this wellbeing session where we will dedicate an hour to our selves, we will start with discussing how you manage to get things done and achieve your goals/tasks now. Afterwards we will start to pinpoint specific techniques that would solve your own individual challenges, which we will call “friction points.” We will end with creating a system that works for you and that is kind, gratifying and enriching so you can try to reduce your day to day stress.

Healing circles are a means for people to come together for meaningful connection through deep listening and compassion. Using poetry, and other forms of creative expression, healing circles invite participants to move out of intellectual consciousness into emotional consciousness, connecting more deeply with what’s in their hearts as well as their minds. Spaces are limited so separate registration is required. Please click on the session name to find the link of the registration form.

Join us for this reflective and creative workshop based on the Higher Education for Good chapter, Counters to Despair. This collection of prose poems will form the basis of our thinking and actions. How do we manage to outwit or outrun our creeping despair in the face of so much gone awry in education and the world? What stands between us and despair? And even more importantly, how do we build and sustain counters to despair that keep us moving towards more peace, equity, and care in ourselves, our institutions and the world. We’ll use structured dialogues, free writing and open dialogue to articulate, share and bolster our defenses against despair. Session resources now available!

This interactive workshop will open a dynamic conversation about open and liberatory education design. How does our work help to accelerate liberatory ed, or maintain current structures and slow it down? How might we start to envision important integration work in order to create a more powerful foundation for an anti-oppressive educational landscape — one that allows all learners to become self-actualized shapers of a more just and sustainable world? Session resources and recording now available!

This session will start with a short mindfulness meditation and then a short discussion about the benefits and different types of journaling. We will have a short activity on the ways each of you can incorporate a journaling practice in your life. Afterwards the remainder of the session will be dedicated for journaling alone (but together) using prompts provided by the facilitator and beautiful, relaxing background music. Come and join us for a self care, wellbeing and joyful hour that you dedicate to your self. You can bring your family with you.

Join us for a 4 day collaborative writing experience. Using a prompt, you are invited to add your part of the story. This is a collaborative story with multiple authors including you. Drop in at any point between 21 July and 24 July and add your part of the story. Come back throughout the period and see where the story goes. 

This is an open novel writing experience for MYFest participants.

Held- July 21-July 24

Click on the name of the event to get the link for the collaborative document we will all work on.

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the concept of a learning sanctuary and examine trauma and agency through the lens of recent student protests. We will focus on heartful listening, a compassionate and empowering approach that emphasizes humility, community, and understanding, essential for creating a learning sanctuary. Additionally, we will discuss how trauma affects students’ lives and learning, offering strategies to help them reclaim their agency. By analyzing recent student protests, we aim to gain insights into the collective trauma and calls for justice driving these movements, enabling us to better support our students.

We will also discuss the notions of safety and discomfort in learning, exploring the meaning and implications of the pedagogy of discomfort. This includes promoting reflective spaces and using restorative practices to address conflicts and rebuild trust. By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped with practical tools to create inclusive, supportive, and responsive educational environments that foster growth and understanding.

Join us to use sounds of the world to foster learning!

Conflict is something most of us shy away from, but it is also inevitable. It makes us uncomfortable and unsure, and unresolved conflict can lead to negative mental health consequences, destructive or toxic community spaces, loss of community connections members, and limitations on solutions and opportunities. But not all conflict is negative; conflict can be generative, and there are constructive ways to resolve conflict that contribute to the health of organizations, communities, teams and individuals. Join us for this conversation about how conflict manifests at organizational, team and individual levels, how and why we respond to conflict negatively, and generative, healthy approaches to conflict with the goal of transforming our understanding of conflict to create better communities. Together, we will build a framework for understanding conflict, its impact, and chart impactful strategies for resolution. We will use theory and strategy and invite lived experiences. Session recording now available!

This interactive session will be the seeds of a participatory storytelling project. We will be considering the feeling of “freedom” when we learn. We invite everyone to attend, reflect, and share stories, which will in turn become the basis of a beautiful mosaic of narratives dedicated to liberatory learning. (All are welcome — Part 1 is not required in order to jump in on the conversation and enjoy/participate in Part 2). Session recording now available!

Though historically (and in popular media), Tarot has been popularized as a tool for divination, it actually provides a powerful tool for storytelling, reflection, and self-discovery. The major arcana consists of a collection of 22 archetypes that encompass major life themes including creation, stability, loss, solitude, curiosity, healing, transition, balance, justice, wisdom, patience, and hope. Drawing on radical and queer approaches to tarot, this session will introduce participants to the major arcana and the questions that these archetypes provoke. Participants will be invited to participate in a 22-day asynchronous autoethnography project focused on daily reflections, storytelling, and activities based on each of the cards.

This session will start with a short intro about the different forms of meditation and a reflection on which type resonates most with you. You will also get to hear some tips and tricks for how to incorporate a meditation practice in your life, to the degree that you want/need. We will then of course meditate together. You will be guided through a gratitude meditation. Come and join us for a self case, wellbeing and joyful hour that you dedicate to your self. You can bring your family with you.

Healing circles are a means for people to come together for meaningful connection through deep listening and compassion. Using poetry, and other forms of creative expression, healing circles invite participants to move out of intellectual consciousness into emotional consciousness, connecting more deeply with what’s in their hearts as well as their minds. Spaces are limited so separate registration is required. Please click on the session name to find the link of the registration form.

Emotion29 is a netprov, networked improv or online collaborative writing game, about the emerging feelings in our world today. The game has two parts: emotional data collection and emotional data study. In the first half, players answer creative prompts about the new emotion they’ve been feeling lately. In the second half, donning on the hat of emotional scientists, they write observations as they review the data. What is the new emotion? Help us explore E29 in this collaborative writing game! Session recording now available!

Embodiology® draws upon endogenous West African practices of movement and music to offer preparedness for the unexpected. A mindful journey is scaffolded through breath-informed, polyrhythmic exercises that yield an ubuntu form of self-inquiry that is at once in relationship with the community. Resilience, courage, joy and optimism are outcomes of engaging in this wakeful improvisation method that works with all levels of physical capability.

This virtual workshop requires no prior experience of a movement practice, only the curiosity to explore from the inside out. Embodiology is a once a theory, a practice and a tool of analysis and it has shown efficacy across a number of fields from K-12 education, medical education, visual and performing arts, integrative healthcare and professional development.