Learning Together unConference 2022

While conference gatherings are opportune spaces for the intellectual exchange and presentation of innovative research and writings, such events can also serve as opportunities to apply that which we witness emerging through dialogue. With this year’s unConference focusing on “Decolonial Futures”, it is this very potential that we hope to catalyze through shifting how we create space for engagement.

Call for Submissions (Deadline: February 21, 2022) 

It is with great pleasure that we announce the opening intake for submissions for the next virtual session of this year’s Learning Together unConference (LTuC) on March 5, 2022.

While conference gatherings are opportune spaces for the intellectual exchange and presentation of innovative research and writings, such events can also serve as opportunities to apply that which we witness emerging through dialogue. With this year’s unConference focusing on “Decolonial Futures”, it is this very potential that we hope to catalyze through shifting how we create space for engagement.

In this call-out for submissions, we invite you to consider sharing your work, lived experiences, and expertise in a manner that reflects the practice of collective learning and unlearning. This year we would like to create space for the opportunity of presenting submissions to peers as part of an invitational process for feedback that integrates the shared experiences of attendees. By shifting away from linear and unidirectional presentations formats, we invite you to consider your submission not necessarily as an indication of ‘completed’ work, but rather as an opportunity to further inform your work through an embodied and collective experience with peers that is rooted in reciprocity.

We recognize that this approach may be challenging and new to some – we encourage you to consider how it is within this uncertainty that lies the potential to disrupt and unsettle. Similar to how we chose to frame this year’s event as an “unConference”, we invite you to consider how your submissions can support this momentum to unlearn and reshape how we engage with pedagogy, praxis, and each other.

Statements of interest (max 300 words) to share are currently being accepted and are due no later than Monday, February 21, 2022. Please send statements of interest to educconf@sfu.ca.

We welcome your statement of interest in any format or style, formal or informal. Please include the following information for scheduling purposes: 

• What is your name and community 

• What is the title of your sharing?

• What would you like to explain and how would you engage your audience? 

• How much time do you need for your sharing?

Possible ways to share in this dialogic cohort community building experience:

Experiential Session: (30-60minutes) are contemplative experiences guided by the student This type of session is not led in a lecture-type format, rather discussion questions or activities are offered, the intent of this session is the experience of practice.

Workshop Session: (45-60minutes) provide students the opportunity to dig deeper into a particular area of focus, offering small group dialogue opportunities with guided questions.

Input Session: (30-60minutes) provide students the opportunity to share where they are in their current research and studies and connect with participants for feedback. For example, what is interesting about this topic, what questions are now emerging around this topic?

Other offerings can include panel discussions, dialogues, performances, community sharing.  Please share your topic or idea with educconf@sfu.ca with the email subject LTuC Submission.

We are so excited to be together and share our learnings.

Warmly,

The Learning Together unConference Planning Committee