MYFest 2025: Schedule

We are getting ready to start MYFest25 on June 1st, which is only one more week away! So to give you a “Taste of MYFest25”, we are running a session that’s free and open, for you to learn more about what Mid-Year Festival is all about, meet others from the community, share your hopes and expectations, and ask any questions you have.

Curious Coffee offers the opportunity to connect with others you want to know better within the Equity Unbound community. Participants are randomly paired every month and arrange a 30-minute online meeting to discuss topics they are passionate about while enjoying a coffee. The initiative encourages exploration of ideas, with no obligation to meet the same partner again, unless both wish to continue the conversation.

The DS106 Daily Create is a daily challenge involving 15-20 minutes of creative digital art making and storytelling. Participants will try a few Daily Creates and explore how to incorporate brief creative activities and daily challenges into teaching and learning.

A group for anyone interested in establishing or maintaining a writing or journaling practice. This group is open to anyone who wants to join and will also be linked to the various writing workshops offered at MyFest25. You will see random prompts and be encouraged to share if you want, but it’s totally okay for you to use the social and community motivation to help you write or journal, without sharing. This group will be on Discord under the MYFest25 server.

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to voice the uncertainties affecting how they teach, and will work in small groups to reflect on changes they may need to imagine in their teaching using the Liberating Structure Ecocycle, whose purpose is to help us adapt intentionally and prioritize what we do by making changes based on changing circumstances.

This interactive workshop explores how poetry can support reflection, wellbeing, and connection in higher education. Open to all staff and students, it offers practical ways to use poetry – from haiku to free verse – to express lived experience and build a sense of belonging.

In this age of rapid technological evolution and shifting geopolitical landscapes, creating secure digital spaces for community engagement has never been more crucial. Let’s identify your community’s unique needs, then explore dynamic, powerful, open-source tools designed to foster safe online environments together.

Ever wanted to make a game? Come to our AI game workshop and see where your imagination leads you.

This hands-on workshop explores how analogue games – from card-based activities to board games – can support learning, reflection, and connection in higher education. Ideal for those curious about using or designing low-tech, playful approaches to teaching and research.

This experiential workshop explores how to use imagination intentionally by balancing the brain’s creative and task-oriented networks. Learn how to design for engagement, structure, and flow—where real learning happens.
Session Duration: 2 hours

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 🙂

In this session, participants will have an opportunity to voice the uncertainties affecting how they teach, and will work in small groups to reflect on changes they may need to imagine in their teaching using the Liberating Structure Ecocycle, whose purpose is to help us adapt intentionally and prioritize what we do by making changes based on changing circumstances.

Iterationism is a theory of AI and co-learning (multiple humans and AI) focused on cognitive effort. This theory transforms the idea of AI being merely ‘generative’ to reimagine its role as an archivist. This session will help participants explore and understand implications of Iterationism for co-learning design.

Session Duration: 75 minutes

In the “Joy Centered Pedagogy” Book Circle, we will be exploring the depth of the ideas from the book in community with other participants. Unlike a traditional book club, the purpose is read deeper, and spend time connecting with the ideas, with each other, and with our work in experiential and engaging ways. Space will be made for introspection, play, laughter, debate, conflict, reflection, and so much more.

This book circle requires separate registration through the google form linked inside. Please note that there is a limited number of participants that could join, so please sign up if you plan to participate.

Healing circles are a means for people to come together for meaningful connection through deep listening and compassion. Through the simple act of sharing and listening, we develop deep connection to one another’s sense of humanity, and leave the session feeling like we are not alone.

This healing and compassion circle requires separate registration through the google form linked inside. Please note that there is a limited number of participants that could join, so please sign up if you plan to participate.

Please join us for another co-facilitated book circle on the book “Burnout from Humans.” As part of this book circle, we will explore the depth of the book and it’s implications over a series of sessions together, where we will move beyond simply consuming the ideas with our heads, to connecting them to our heart and hands in experiential ways.

This book circle requires separate registration through the google form linked inside. Please note that there is a limited number of participants that could join, so please sign up if you plan to participate.

Stop crying! Don’t be angry!
Do you fall among the many who say these common statements?
Join me in Wisdom of Emotions Workshop to discover how harmful the above statements are, how you need to sit with your emotion, learn simple techniques to manage everyday waves of emotions.

Reimagine annotation as a critical and civic literacy that can inscribe public memory, struggles for justice, and social change. Based on Remi Kalir’s book “Re/Marks on Power,” this session features both a book talk and an annotation jam demonstrating how groups of annotators make public re/marks of resistance and creativity. Critically question how annotation has and can be composed as you mark both your books and public discourses.
Session Duration: 90 minutes

How can we activate learning, foster a sense of community, and add elements of fun to any session? Entrance and exit tickets allow facilitators and educators to engage learners by adding the “unexpected” to the beginning and end of sessions in a structured way. Join us for an hour of trying out and co-creating opening and closing activities for educational settings.

A relaxed workshop fostering discovery and imagination through the sharing of online resources. No technical skills needed—just explore the resources, brainstorm possible uses, and leave with intriguing ideas for teaching and learning contexts.