Day 5 – SDF’s Festival 2020

SDF Executive Introduction 

9:45 to 9:50

Workshop Stream 2

Jazz Up Your Day – Same path, different scenery!

Helen Connor & Christian McGrath – University of Huddersfield

9:50 to 10:45

Synopsis: This session looks at tips and tools to keep your mind, body, and soul healthy during working from home or working back in the office with new restrictions. We shall look at what you have control over in relation to keeping your mental health in check through a variety of activities.

Workshop Stream 4

It Ain’t where you do it, it’s the way that you do it

Doug Parkin – AdvanceHE

11:00 to 11:45

Synopsis: There are some principles of adult learning that apply regardless of the mode or medium. The challenge for teachers or facilitators suddenly interacting with groups online using unfamiliar technologies is to keep those principles alive. If we are not careful, we find ourselves retreating to the safe ground of ‘covering content’ and asynchronous knowledge sharing. As David Merrill tells us, “information is not instruction” and so providing content and information online, however cleverly presented, is not the answer. The key to adult learning is experience, and discussion-based discovery. So, facilitating opportunities for learners to create personal meaning through well-framed exploration holds the answer. This workshop will look at how to translate these key principles and approaches to online and mixed-mode teaching and facilitation.

Keynote Stream 3

Embodiment and Equity Leadership: Centering Equity & Inclusion Inside of Ourselves

Nita Baum – b*free

14:00 to 14:45

Synopsis: Where do our perceptions, biases and blindspots arise from? How do our nervous systems impact the way we contribute to systemic racism, inequality, incivility and inequity? In this interactive keynote, we’ll embark on a journey together to explore the relationship between our nervous systems, our wellbeing and how they shape the lenses through which we see each other, listen, sense-make, communicate and decision-make. Conversations about equity and race can be charged and uncomfortable. Once we become embodied- connected to our awareness and power in the root of ourselves – our nervous systems – we have much more agency and choice in how we show up as leaders and self-leaders to make different choices in service of greater civility, equity, wellbeing and to support each other.

Festival Highlights

As SDF Festival Keynote Listener, Cindy Vallance will provide reflections and facilitate a final session with keynote speakers.

Cindy Vallance – AdvanceHE

15:00 to 15:45

Synopsis: I began public speaking at the age of six to arena audiences that numbered in the thousands. As a true introvert, while I enjoyed these opportunities they necessitated a performative element that I was never fully comfortable with. I love to learn and it is only possible to shift from knowing to learning by being fully present in a receptive and listening state, open to options and opportunities. I was first introduced to the concept of keynote listening through the work of Canadian academic and author, Henry Mintzberg. My intention for this session, where I will be joined by Festival keynote speakers, will be to provide reflections and connections across the richness of all the ideas that have come before. I hope to encourage participants to similarly engage in a reflective mind-set that informs commitment to action for positive change.