Deeper Learning Canada: Full Schedule

Save The Date! July 2nd - 4th 2026

You will be able to validate your attendance (Check-In to sessions) using your personal schedule.

9:00am PDT

Deep Dive - Teaching at the Table: Collaborative Learning Through Role-Playing Games

Friday July 3, 2026 9:00am - 11:30am PDT

What will participants experience?
Participants will experience playing a tabletop role-playing game (rpg) as a player, discussing their experience, and working together to design their own game for learning or exploration of a topic.

What and how will they learn?
Participants will have an opportunity to learn about and participate in the role-playing game Wanderlust by Star West Morgan. After the gameplay experience, we will discuss rpgs, game mechanics, and how tabletop role-playing games can support development and learning as collaborative self-exploration and transformation. Participants will then have a chance to design or adapt their own rpg for exploring a topic, social or academic competency, or learning goal of their choice.

What will they take away?
Participants will take away insights into what tabletop rpgs are, how they can contribute to collaborative and cooperative learning, and transformative experiences. They will gain experience playing an rpg, and some understanding of game mechanics. They will hopefully also take away some concrete ideas about implementing rpgs into their teaching and learning practices.

This workshop connects especially to the Deeper Learning Competency of Collaborative Care. Role-playing games are spaces of deep collaboration, reciprocity, and power-sharing. My goal with presentations is to create an experience based in these principles, and encourage participants to collaborate, share, and support, both in and outside of gameplay.

Speakers

Kari Gustafson

Instructor, University of the Fraser Valley - School of Education

Kari Gustafson, PhD (they/she) is an instructor, researcher, role-playing gamer, and parent, working in the crossroads of neurodiversity and disability studies, education, and role-playing games. They explore how these areas connect and inform one another, and our experiences of identities... Read More →

Friday July 3, 2026 9:00am - 11:30am PDT
Imagine High - Room 219

Deep Dives & Advisory

9:45am PDT

Workshop - Inquiry-based Learning as Education System Transformation

Saturday July 4, 2026 9:45am - 11:15am PDT

Imagine High - Room 219

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the PSII inquiry approach. They will learn about the foundations of the approach and the school, and will then have an opportunity to experience inquiry learning directly through a series of guided activities. The intention is to simulate what it feels like to be immersed in inquiry and also to get a glimpse of how interdisciplinary inquiry is assessed at the high-school level. participants will learn by listening, doing, talking, and asking.

Speakers

Jeff Hopkins

Co-Principal, Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry

Jeff and Jessica are co-principals of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry, a small, independent school in Victoria, BC. Both of them have been there since the beginning of the school's life in 2013. Jeff founded the school after having been a school district superintendent... Read More →