UNF Future Educators of America (FEA) Northeast Regional Conference

2026 FEA Breakout Sessions

• Accessibility and Disability: Remixing Learning Spaces

  Discover the tools and strategies that unleash every student’s potential.

  Session Description

  Join us for a session on considering disability and accessibility in learning spaces - in PK12 classrooms, higher education environments, and the workplace. This interactive session will provide you with essential knowledge and practical strategies to proactively consider individuals with disability within your communities and contexts, remixing spaces to include everyone.

  In this session, you will:

  • Learn about the principles of Universal Design and the importance of accessibility in classrooms and workplaces.
  • Discover effective strategies and tools for creating environments that allow all individuals to engage in learning.
  • Participate in scenarios that simulate the challenges and solutions of fostering accessible learning spaces.
  • Name multiple ways you can advocate for and support all individuals in a learning community.

  Goals

  • Understand the impact of disability on accessibility and belonging.
  • Name proactive strategies for creating accessible spaces.
  • Identify reasonable accommodations.
  • Apply advocacy in your own environments.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, Room 1250
• Find Your Rhythm: The Journey to Becoming a Teacher

  Think teaching might be your jam? Curious about what it’s really like to major in teacher education and prepare for a career in the classroom?

  Session Description

  Join us for an engaging and interactive roundtable featuring current teacher education students who are already finding their rhythm on the path to becoming educators. Hear their real stories, experiences, challenges, and advice as they share what it’s like to go from college classrooms to leading classrooms.

  During this session, you'll hear about:

  • What life is really like as a teacher education major.
  • The highs, challenges, and surprises of student teaching.
  • How coursework and hands-on classroom experiences work together.
  • Tips for finding your rhythm and succeeding in a teacher education program.
  • Different pathways and opportunities within the field of education.
  • What current teacher candidates wish they had known before starting college.

  Whether you’re interested in teaching elementary, middle, or high school, this session will give you a behind-the-scenes look at the journey to becoming an educator—and help you discover whether teaching is your jam!

  Come with your questions, bring your curiosity, and hear directly from students who are already making their way from aspiring educators to future classroom leaders.

  Goals
  By the end of this session, students will:

  • Hear authentic stories and experiences from current teacher education students.
  • Gain a better understanding of what to expect in a teacher education program.
  • Learn practical tips for navigating college coursework and classroom experiences.
  • Explore different pathways and possibilities within the field of education.
  • Connect with current and future educators and build their network.
  • Reflect on whether a career in education might be their jam.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, Room 1100A

• Solve, Tinker, Explore, Play (STEP) Lab

  *Advanced registration required*

  Accept the challenge, design with courage, and pilot your way to victory.

  Session Description

  In the STEP Lab (Solve, Tinker, Explore & Play), visiting students, as well as their instructional leaders, are asked to reimagine what high-quality, rigorous and student-centered STEM learning activities can look and sound like while collaborating to design, build, refine and deploy creative solutions to critical thinking challenges. At its core, STEM teaching and learning in the STEP Lab is about authentic expressions of playful learning through the engineering and design cycle which challenges conventional thinking and approaches to teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in classrooms. Working in small teams, participants engage in hands-on, inquiry-oriented, project-based STEM challenges that ’get brains sweating’ as they learn to laugh and embrace the experimental aspects of the nature of science across a wide-range of domains.
  
  The Drone Platform Challenge Activity is a fast-paced coop-etition (cooperative competition). Working in small teams, participants are asked to collaborate to design and build a freestanding platform tower, using a limited variety of materials, that is capable of supporting mini-drone landing maneuvers. After a short demonstration on effective and safe piloting of drone in indoor spaces, teams are invited to maneuver their drones through a series of obstacles as they strive to approach and land their drone on the platform. In the spirit of cooperative learning, the activity concludes with each team explaining their unique engineering design approach and what they might do to refine their platforms after having had the opportunity to test their creations in a safe, supportive and playful learning space.

  Goals

  • Foster an appreciation and understanding of the educative principles that are foundational to virtually all forms of play.
  • Promote active participation, the development of a shared vision and the importance of mutual respect and clear communication when engaging in inquiry-oriented, critical thinking tasks with others.
  • Deeper understanding of the iterative and experimental nature of the engineering design process as well as the acceptance that failing mindfully is a critical part of learning across all STEM domains.
  • Exposure and experience co-piloting a drone with a partner through a series of challenging obstacles that require patience and critical thinking to best.
  • Authentic self-reflection and communication of strategic sense-making processes to an audience of peers.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, Room 1420

• Press Play: Experience College, Explore Engagement

  Ever wonder what it is really like to be a college student studying to become a teacher? Press play and step into the experience!

  Session Description

  In this interactive session, you’ll experience a mini college class designed for future educators. You’ll participate in engaging activities, collaborate with classmates, tackle questions, and explore what makes learning experiences interesting, meaningful, and memorable.

  As you experience the class, you’ll also begin thinking like a teacher. Together, we’ll explore what helps learners become interested, involved, and invested in learning and consider the kinds of strategies teachers can use to support meaningful engagement across classroom settings.
  
  If teaching is your jam, come press play on your future and get a taste of college life while discovering strategies you can someday use to engage your own students.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, 1100B

• The Future of Learning (Teacher's Version): Designing a People-First Classroom with AI

  Where imagination, design, and AI meet.

  Session Description

  What will learning look like when you're the teacher? It's time to write your version. In this fast-paced, interactive session, Dr. Suzanne Ehrlich and UNF student leaders take you through three tracks:

  • Track 1, Power Up: Get to know generative AI: what it can do, what it can't, and why people, not technology, belong at the center of learning.
  • Track 2, Play Test: Draw a challenge card, call out the prompt, and watch AI take it on live. Then vote: did it nail it or miss? Would you trust it? Find out where AI shines, where it slips up, and who it might leave out.
  • Track 3, Design Mode: Team up to sketch the classroom of the future, starting with the people in it, and show where AI fits in. Then add your team's best rule for putting people first to our shared wall, and together we'll build a class guide for the future of learning.

  You'll also get a look at UNF's new minor, Future of Learning through AI and Design, where students explore how AI and design are changing the ways people learn. Come ready to play, create, and imagine what's next.

  Goals

  • Discover what AI can do and where it makes mistakes.
  • Experiment with AI tools and consider who they help and who they might leave out.
  • Imagine a future classroom with people at the center, and create shared guidelines for using AI responsibly.
  • Explore where an interest in learning, design, and AI could lead you, including UNF's Future of Learning through AI and Design minor.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, Room 2120

• Expressing Personal Stories through Art

  *Advanced registration required*

  Session Description

  Join the Education Department of Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Jacksonville for a hands-on lesson in creative self-expression. In this session, participants will have access to a variety of materials to create a piece of art informed by their reflections on their high school experience and their future goals. Following the art making, participants will share their works and thoughts with the group as we practice student centered learning and methods for art criticism.

   

  Location: Bldg. 57, Room 2060

• Game On: Exploring Esports, Education & Careers

  *Advanced registration required*

  Session Description

  We at UNF Esports will introduce future educators to the academic and career pathways the industry offers through a facility tour and an interactive lecture. Students will be given a first-hand look at how Esports are run through the lens of higher education. We aim to show students how esports can be a tool for engagement, learning, and professional development, while also showing them how they can bring these opportunities into their own future to inspire the next generation of students.
  
  While esports has a competitive side to it including Varsity teams, it is less about the games and more about the opportunities students gain from it. An esports program operates much like a full-scale live events organization, where students take on roles across broadcast production, technical operations, and event management to bring competitions to life.

   

  Location: Bldg. 58 West, 2nd level: The Flight Deck Arena

• Teaching Beyond the Classroom: A Virtual Reality Jam Session

  *Advanced registration required*

  Session Description

  Ready to travel the world, test your rhythm, and experience learning in a completely new way? Step inside UNF’s Virtual Learning Center for a hands-on virtual reality sampler! Participants may challenge themselves in Beat Saber, enter the captivating world of Tetris Effect, play a round of Walkabout Mini Golf, explore destinations through Google Earth VR, or experience the natural world in Ecosphere.
  
  Along the way, students will discover how virtual reality can turn learning into an experience—one that future educators can use to inspire curiosity, encourage active participation, and take their students beyond the walls of a traditional classroom. Space and time in the headsets will be limited, so participants should be ready to jump in and start exploring!

   

  Location: Bldg. 12, 3rd floor – Virtual Learning Center