I am a PhD student, an instructor and a curriculum specialist simultaneously at multiple institutions across Canada. My studies, my pedagogy and my practice in curriculum design all center inclusive design practices. I understand exclusion as the result of social, physical, and technological design and believe that through deliberate redesign of educational spaces and practices, higher education can be more inclusive. Other key interests of mine include open pedagogy and alternative assessment.

Why I’m in MYFest: I attended MYFest last year and loved the community and the critical and creative approaches to exploring teaching and learning. Last year, I was unable to participate as fully as I would have liked, but this year I’m hoping to have more space to fully engage.

MYFest involvement: I am facilitating 2 workshop series:

• The Hidden Curriculum of Ed Tech is a 2-part series that will explore the values, beliefs and biases inherent in the designs of digital learning tools and environments. Part 1 focuses on epistemic bias and underlying beliefs about the purpose of education and the roles of the instructor and the students. Part 2 focuses on hostile designs, or designs of control, exploring how they often masquerade as convenience mechanisms but serve to reinforce existing hierarchies of control in the classroom.
• Re/storying Pedagogy for More Equitable Futures is an interactive, collaborative storytelling session in which participants will create a networked map of the many factors that influence teaching, learning and identity in higher education spaces. The goal is to reveal the hidden influences that constrain our practices. The end of the workshop will be dedicated to speculative storytelling – rewriting educational presents in order to shape the educational futures that we want and need. This session is an experimental session based on my doctoral work, so it’s guaranteed to be a bit messy, but hopefully will be fun and result in some meaningful reflection on why we do what we do and how we could possibly change education for the better.