9:30 am – 4:30 pm
The 2026 April Conference is hybrid. Join us in person at Bard College or online!
Registration will open in December.
April Conference 2026: Attention and Distraction in the Classroom
“What you pay attention to is your life,” writes attention researcher Amishi Jha. As demands on our attention multiply, what can teachers do to create vibrant communities of attention in the classroom? How might insights from cognitive science help us imagine new ways to foster sustained attention, respectful listening, deep reading—and even embrace the generative possibilities of distraction?
This April, our conference will explore how writing-based practices can invite students to slow down and more thoughtfully engage with their own learning and lived experiences. We will take up the intertwined themes of attention and distraction in the classroom, asking how we can create spaces where students rediscover the energizing joy of deep engagement—with ideas, with texts, and with each other.
The 2026 April Conference is a daylong conference held in small, interactive groups. It is a hybrid event, and participants can join us in person at Bard College or online. Participants read, write, and explore a range of pedagogical practices in their workshop groups, drawing on a rich anthology of texts. We will gather for a midmorning plenary session that helps to anchor and inspire the day’s work.
Registering online vs. in-person: What to expect
Join us in-person at Bard: After checking in and receiving your notebook and anthology, you will begin the day in your workshop group, reading and writing together and drawing on a rich anthology of texts. Everyone will gather, along with online participants, for a midmorning hybrid plenary session. After lunch, you will reconvene with your workshop group to conclude the day with collaborative reading, writing, and discussion. The schedule also includes short coffee breaks.
Join us online: You will start the day on Zoom in your workshop group, reading and writing together and drawing on a rich digital anthology of texts. Later that morning, you will join the hybrid plenary (a different Zoom link) that will connect you with our live audience in Annandale. That afternoon, after a break for lunch, you will reconvene with your workshop group (at the original Zoom link) to conclude the day with collaborative reading, writing, and discussion.
Registration & Fees
Hear it from our participants
"Such a pleasure to hear fellow participants’ work—as if time were suspended. Nurturing. Human."