MYFest Schedule: All Years

What can a zany, age-old, theater comedy tradition based on human nature teach us today? Come write, play, and laugh i as we make a humorous improvised script.

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.

Take ten minutes to be mindful and reset your mind with a simple, calming and grounding guided meditation. Open to all levels, this biweekly practice helps you carry more calm and mindfulness into the rest of your day.

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 simple, playful and mindful paper-sculpture session. Learn how to process minor frustration and ground in the present moment through a combination of cathartic and creative processes.

Learn from examples of thoughtfully designed educational AI prompts, including tools for critical thinking and writing feedback that students can use with free chatbots. We'll identify key prompting strategies and explore libraries of student-facing prompts while sharing our own experiments and prompting wish lists.

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.

Interested in inviting students to reflect on AI feedback alongside peer feedback, using a lens of linguistic justice and equity? We’re sharing the open, adaptable materials of the Peer & AI Review + Reflection project, including our tested, customizable feedback prompt and set of AI literacy readings and reflection questions.

Historically, specific types of knowledge have always been more likely to be preserved, whether because of the types of materials (digital, analog, oral) or the inequity found in structures, processes and power in decision making around preservation and archiving. The questions around whose data is being preserved, who "owns" the preserved resources and how preservation may further preserve colonial and inequitable perspectives have become even more fraught in recent times, as specific datasets and archives are targeted for disappearance. Equally fraught are pedagogical approaches that predicate preservation of lived experience, resist colonial and othering narratives and resist the-digital-disruption-as-inevitable narrative. This highly interactive session will combine discussion and practice to bring to light the ideas and ideals that might underpin the idea of preservation as resistance and include opportunities to archive and interact with digital preservation, consider how preservation might be incorporated into pedagogies and join together in community to mark what must not be lost and how it might be saved.

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 personal lives and relationships 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.

Using the newly developed PGDIP in Blended and Online Learning as a case study we are exploring ways of widening access to higher education that does not only serve a neoliberal agenda by working towards radical flexiblity and participatory parity.

Discussion of Chris upcoming book, Luxury Surveillance and what the implications are of pervasive surveillance in the age of artificial intelligence

Join author Vanessa Andreotti and her daughter Giovanna for an intergenerational conversation on meta-relationality, AI, and what it means for our species to outgrow modernity. This session explores how our deepest crises are rooted in relational patterns shaped by control, hierarchy, and certainty, and how we might begin to unlearn them together.

This is a recurring, short and guided journaling session. Through thoughtfully written prompts and individual quiet reflection time, you'll journal about gratitude, self-love, loving-kindness and wellbeing. Bring a notebook, an open heart and come just as you are.

In a world of ever-accelerating technologies and split-second learning, what does it mean to learn slowly and why does it matter? Join this interactive session to explore the roots and future of slow learning, reflect on your own learning rhythms, and co-create tools that support inclusive, meaningful, and human-centered learning experiences.

Curious about how groups can have real, human conversations, even on tough topics? Come and experience the Focused Conversation Method, a simple yet powerful way to help groups think, feel, and decide together with clarity and purpose. This tool is part of the globally used Technology of Participation (ToP®) methods from ICA UK. This approach will help you turn any conversation, big or small, into meaningful action. Join us at MYFest and discover how powerful dialogue can truly be!

As terms like “Diversity,” “Equity,” and “Inclusion” are being co-opted, warped, and misunderstood, the need to shift language has never been greater. When we use shorthand terms like “DEI” it can lose its force, especially when we don’t slow down to think what these words mean (and don’t). This workshop will explore these terms on a deeper level and allow us a chance to shift our language so that we remain relevant and meaningful as we pursue important equity work.

Religion, politics, climate change, migration, injustice, algorithms and more; in the modern world there are many forces that push us towards polarized viewpoints. In this two-part series we will explore what works and what doesn't in trying to work effectively and ethically with people holding opposing viewpoints. We'll draw on intercultural theory (a little), conflict resolution (a little) and even practice navigating differences without fear or anger.

Generative AI is transforming the liberal arts, challenging us to protect what matters most: authentic student voices, creativity, and meaningful expression. In this hands-on workshop, we will explore ways to support students in truly owning their work and consider implications for assessment. You’ll leave with practical ideas, new strategies, and inspiration to make your classroom a place where authentic learning is centered, even as the rules keep changing. Don’t just keep up with AI; lead the conversation and empower your students to do the same!

This workshop will explore how we can embrace uncertainty in our learning and in our lives.