Check out Our Keynote Carousel on Thursday, November 13th!

Connection is the Content: A Map of Moments, Meaning, and Movement (Matty Bristol & Mark Housel)

What makes a great activity? What makes a great class? What makes a great connection? In this keynote, longtime friends Mark and Matt take you on a journey across the map of their shared experiences from gym floors to national conferences. Each stop a story, each story a spark of wisdom. With powerful takeaways rooted in play, presence, and purpose, they’ll explore how connection isn’t just a part of teaching Health and Physical Education, it is the teaching.

Through laughter, reflection, and a few unforgettable activities, you’ll learn how to:

• Create space for students to connect deeply with themselves, each other, and the world

• Infuse your teaching with humor, heart, and intention.

• Design joyful, inclusive, and memorable experiences.

• Reframe your practice around the simple truth: Connection is the content

Whether you're just starting out or decades in, come rediscover the why behind what we do — and how to do it well. Let’s make the map together.

Join us on a motivational journey about how fear and failure actually derail us from being the best people and teachers that we are meant to be. Only when we collaborate with fear and embrace failure, can we reach our fullest potential. Melanie will weave the lessons that she learned as a derby girl and share how those lessons translated into obtaining success both personally and professionally. She will highlight how we not only need to incorporate this message for ourselves, but also learn how to empower students to capitalize on fear and failure so that they may overcome any disadvantages that are present and reach their full potential.

Flipping pancakes is one of the most important things a person can do. It’s a noble calling not often appreciated, but always worth the pursuit. With all of the other ways you could have made a difference on this earth, why flip pancakes?

This session aims to be a safe and constructive space for you to explore these questions:

1. Why do you flip pancakes?

2. How do you build your skills, grow equity and get everyone involved, including yourself?

3. What is the intention of every flipping event you host, plan and participate in and how can this whole process make you and those you teach better learners and humans?

Join us as we live out the celebratory story of an epic pancake flipping contest where we aim to be transformed, and become more aware, learning together in movement, reflection and gratitude.