Deeper Learning 2026

Step into the year 2051. In this immersive Deep Dive, you’ll open a “Box from the Future” filled with strange ephemera—protest flyers, redacted curricula, AI classroom reviews—and work with peers to collaboratively imagine the story of how education might evolve over time. Drawing from the discipline of experience design, you will experience this participatory world- building process, but also design your own speculative artifacts and learning experiences. You’ll practice using world-building as a tool for deeper learning across disciplines, helping students critically analyze systems, see agency in the present, and connect learning to real-world issues. You’ll leave with adaptable strategies, artifact templates, and a prototype of your own, all ready to use with students in any subject.

This session is for teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders who want a highly engaging, equity-focused practice rooted in the principles of experience design.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)  
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)  
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)  
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing  
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)  
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

In Crafting Hope in Challenging Times, diverse participants from across the educational ecosystem are invited to engage in a shared, reflective experience focused on how today’s social and political dynamics are felt and lived in schools. Blending design thinking, narrative inquiry, and accessible hands-on making (no artistic background required), participants will translate lived experiences into small quilt-square artifacts using mixed media as metaphor, assembled into a collaborative installation representing collective experience, hope, and imagined change. In a moment of heightened polarization, the session treats craft as a tool for connection, sense-making, and pedagogical imagination.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava

This session is for innovative educators looking to enhance engagement and develop students’ problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills. We will experience a gamified project addressing real-world issues such as eliminating poverty, combating climate change, and peacekeeping. In small groups representing different countries, you will create solutions, trade, form alliances, impose sanctions, and possibly engage in conflict to acquire resources.  Join us for this collaborative experience and take home this synergetic, gamified project that encourages students to learn and take action to improve themselves and the world. Throughout the session, you will hear from students who have completed the project, learning about their experiences and strategies. We will pause to reflect, brainstorm, and discuss how these instructional strategies can engage students in your schools.

Lunch is included in each deep dive.
LUNCH MENU
Greek Salad (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Cannelini Bean & Pasta Salad (Vegan)
Lemon Basmati Rice (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Mediterranean Spiced Chicken (Gluten-Free)
Tahini Dressing
Falafel (Vegan, Gluten-Free)
Roasted Vegetables   Lemon Bars & Baklava