2026 Summer Technology Sabbatical

• • Instructor: Clabough, Erin (ebd2r)
  • Session I

Can we rewire our brains to become more effective leaders? This experiential course explores the neuroscience of mindfulness, teaching students how to achieve rest states and regulate the autonomic nervous system. Students examine the neural circuits and physiological mechanisms underlying arousal states, while participating in contemplative practices including yoga, breathwork, meditation, and nature immersions. Through reading peer-reviewed research, collecting neurophysiological data, and undertaking a self-designed mindful technology exploration, students will experience ways to enhance the attentional regulation and emotional awareness essential for leading oneself and others, based in concepts of neural plasticity.

By enrolling in this course, students commit to an open-hearted exploration of ideas about altered states of consciousness, completing tech-free daily homework assignments, handwritten journaling of reflections on contemplative practices, and maintaining dynamic individualized technology reduction plans outside of class.

• • Instructor: Golino, Hudson (hfg9s)
  • Session I

• • Instructor: Teles, Mariana (mt2yq)
  • Session I

How do we learn best? In this hands-on course, students explore how cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and metacognition shape learning and how reliance on technology can lead to cognitive offloading, or the outsourcing of mental effort to digital tools. Through research-based activities and in-class experiments, students apply study techniques grounded in cognitive science and design their own small-scale research projects. This course will be conducted in a paper-and-pencil, technology-free format as part of UVA’s Technology Sabbatical initiative. By temporarily stepping away from digital tools, students will experience firsthand how focused, analog learning can improve comprehension, retention, and self-regulation. Open to students interested in psychology, cognitive science, or education, this course provides both theoretical

understanding and practical strategies for learning more effectively in college and beyond.

• • Instructor: Meliza, Daniel (cdm8j)
  • Session II

This course surveys the cognitive psychology of nonhuman animals, with topics ranging from learning and memory to cooperation and intentionality. Students learn about these cognitive processes while developing skills in the "paper-napkin" aspects of science---techniques of rough estimates, simplified models, and rapidly sketched experimental designs that distill the scientific process to its essence. The course is organized as a series of inquiry-based modules, each centered around a big-picture question and a core scientific thinking skill. Activities include lectures, in-class team exercises, and seminar-style discussions of foundational and recent journal articles.

• • Instructor: Dubois, Laurent (lmd8s)
  • Session III

History, Memory & Place offer students a three-week immersion in how we connect with and interpret the past through archives, historical sites, monuments, buildings and landscapes. Students will read a mix of history, theory, and literature (including a novel by William Faulkner) that will shape experiential learning through work in the UVA Special Collections library, engagement with the historical spaces of UVA grounds, as well as in Charlottesville other local historical sites including Monticello and Montpelier. All of the work in the course will be done without the use of technology, with the focus on direct engagement with material objects and places, conversation as a class and in small groups, and writing assignments done by hand. Students will also be encouraged to share their thoughts and experience in other ways, including through artistic work if they wish. We will ultimately focus on using time away from technology to engage with the world and with one another in a process of collective learning that will also create a deeper connection to the sites at UVA and in the surrounding area.

• • Instructor: Wood, Adrienne (aw7gy)
  • Session III

Why do we cry at movies, freeze in fear, or fall in love? Emotions shape what we notice, how we learn, who we trust, and even how we remember our lives. They spark action, forge relationships, and—when they go awry—can underlie mental illness. In this discussion-based seminar, we’ll dive into the psychological science of emotion. We’ll maintain a tech-free classroom that encourages focus and authentic connection. This slower, more present mode of engagement will complement our scientific inquiry into how emotions guide decision-making, fuel creativity, and define what it means to be human. Outside the classroom, we will examine the emotional implications of the most dramatic recent change to how humans interact: the internet and social media. Through a collaborative “experiment,” we’ll modify our own phone use over the month, then analyze and reflect on the emotional consequences, linking our lived experience to contemporary research on emotion and social media. 

• • Instructor: Pappas, Jesse (jbp9m) & Lapan, Julia (jcg9j)
  • Session III

Instructor: Panagiotis Apostolellis (pa7xu)

Session I

This study abroad course in Crete, Greece, allows students to practice multiple concepts and techniques involved in the design of interactive software in a real-world context. The program provides the opportunity for students to apply skills acquired in various courses and work experiences in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The course is augmented by lessons on creativity from an expert in the host institution, as well as creativity workshops and challenges. Students will work in groups in a fast-paced environment, identifying real-world problems and designing- prototyping-testing innovative solutions in multiple iterations. They will receive feedback from pre-determined stakeholders in their design domain, acting as clients.

As part of the tech sabbatical integrated into this program, students will be asked to strictly refrain from using phones, laptops, and other digital devices beyond the demands of in-class, on-task work. Despite technology being an integral part of interaction design, students will be asked to focus on interpersonal design: i.e., within-group communication, team bonding, and intercultural skills. In other words, participating students will be expected to keep their technology away (i.e., no phone apps/games, social media, text/chat messaging, email, etc.) whenever in the presence of their project group, extended program team (incl. instructors and clients), and while engaging with locals (i.e., during lunch/breakfast, museum visits, or excursions). Exceptions will be accepted only for the following reasons: a) developing or testing your prototypes, b) taking photos during visits or for work, and c) emergency contact with family or others (beyond the designated communication time). This tech sabbatical will allow you to fully immerse yourself in the culture and pay attention to things that matter the most during this experience, the people and the settings around you!

Instructor: Angela Orebaugh (ado4v)

Session III

This course explores the intersection of technology, design, and human well-being, focusing on how digital systems impact our attention, emotions, relationships, and health. Students will engage with concepts from human-centered design, digital well-being, contemplative computing, and positive computing, developing the skills to create technologies that prioritize human needs, experiences, and flourishing. Activities include case studies, design critiques, re-designs, and other methods to engage with the concepts.

The course incorporates a "technology sabbatical" to gain insight into the impact of technology on students’ lives. The sabbatical includes reducing technology use outside of class and will be tailored to each student’s needs based on individualized technology use assessments at the beginning of the course. Students will set personalized goals for the technology sabbatical and track changes in their habits and well-being throughout the course. Sabbatical examples could include refraining from social media, disabling notifications, or practicing daily "device-free time" for the duration of the course. Students will maintain a journal documenting their experiences with reduced technology use and how it affects their focus, emotions, and relationships. Additionally, the class will collectively brainstorm strategies to manage technology use and support each other during the sabbatical.

Instructor: Stephen C. E. Hopkins (xfc6wq)

Session III

This course introduces students to Old Norse mythology and cosmology, and their adaptation into later medieval prose sagas, such as Egil's Saga, Gunnlaug's Saga, and more. We will begin with Prose and Poetic Eddas, examining their mythic poems and learning essential historical and cultural contexts necessary to appreciate these bodies of myth and legend. We will then consider how the conversion to Christianity (in the summer of 999) changed Iceland’s literary landscape. Yet the heathen myths survived the advent of this new faith, and even thrived. In the back half of the course, we will focus on texts composed well within the Christian era to investigate the various ways in which medieval Icelanders reckoned with the heathen past of their ancestors while working out their own identity in verse and prose.

Note: there are two “tech sabbatical” aspects to this course—an in-class and out-of-class pledge. In the classroom, we will all pledge to be “low-tech”, leaving our phones and other ping-able smart devices in a communal class bin for the duration of the class; likewise, computers and other electronic devices will remain in our bags while class is in session. We will use only print materials for class lab times. Outside of our classroom time, students will pledge to spend 60-90 minutes tech-free per day outside of class time.

Instructor: Nieves García Prados (mdg4xf)

Session III

SPAN 2020 is a version of the traditional advanced-intermediate Spanish course that offers the challenge of putting aside technology and the typically used digital language learning platforms, to give students a break during the summer from the dependence that we all have on the machines that are part of our daily lives, especially mobile phones. To do this, we will return to a traditional classroom, open to dialogue, debate, and reading, which will lead students to reflect without distraction, develop critical thinking, and open the window to knowledge of the Hispanic world with the eyes of those who discover a new horizon, made up of almost 600 million speakers around the world. All this with a return to books, dialogue, writing, cinema, and human relations.