Transcript Building the Future: Learning, Teaching

Building the Future: Learning,
Teaching - Topics, Tools and Tasks
By
Steve Steele
Institute for the Future @ Anne Arundel Community College
www.aacc.edu/future
Presented at Fullerton College
October 31, 2005
www.aacc.edu/future
"When you come to a fork in the road,
take it!”
Yogi Berra
www.aacc.edu/future
Why I’m here today: Mission for the
Institute for the Future @AACC
www.aacc.edu/future
• IF seeks to
enhance learning by integrating futures
methodologies into strategies for learning
• provide strategies for understanding the
future to the community and consulting to
area businesses and other organizations.
• provides growth and development opportunities
for AACC faculty, staff and students…
www.aacc.edu/future
Where we’re headed today…
• Topics: Why the future is important
Why worry about the future?
• Tools: How to think about it
Four ways to view the future…
Simple– powerful
Four P’s and a W!
• Tasks: Including futures in courses around the
curriculum
A simple powerful tool for futurizing:
A futures wheel
Anatomy of a futures exercise for your course
www.aacc.edu/future
Topics: Why the future is important
“A Time of Convulsive Change
Every crisis should be a reminder to us of the
importance of thinking now about the future.”
• “The importance of thinking ahead is growing
rapidly because the pace of change is
accelerating.”
• “…Almost everything seems to be coming
unstuck”
From the Future: An Owners Manual. World Future Society
http://www.wfs.org/ownermanual.htm
www.aacc.edu/future
Why…?
• The Importance of the Future
”..what we can plausibly expect …so we can understand … our
options.”
A very serious mistake:
“…it is impossible to know anything about the future, so the
future can simply be ignored.”
“Learning what we can know about the future enables us to think
constructively…” We can build our social realities.
“We … really do have the ability to think constructively about the
future…”
“Proactive, future-oriented thinking can lead to greater success.”
From the Future: An Owners Manual. World Future Society
http://www.wfs.org/ownermanual.htm
www.aacc.edu/future
Why…?
•
We already think about the future, why not do it in a
more active, proactive manner?
We may not be able to exactly predict but we can
thoughtfully address the future.
What we do now has an influence on what we will be.
• Role of future thinking in business, government,
education, health, religion, family…
www.aacc.edu/future
Summary:
Value of Looking into The Future
• You can have a hand in your future
• “How can you get there if you don’t know
where you want to go?”
• Acts as a magnet for action
• Makes purposive action possible
• It will always change, it’s rarely clear…
www.aacc.edu/future
Tools: How to think about it
Four Approaches for Future Visioning
• Reactive
80
70
60
“The future is pretty
much like the
past…”
50
40
30
20
10
0
1970
1980
1990
2000
www.aacc.edu/future
2010
Four Approaches for Future Visioning
• Inactive
“You can’t worry
about it, just be
prepared to “go
with the flow…”
www.aacc.edu/future
Four Approaches for Future Visioning
• Preactive
“You need to be
scanning the
environment to ride
trends…”
www.aacc.edu/future
Four Approaches for Future
Visioning
• Proactive
“You need to be
scanning the
environment and
interact with and
on trends…”
•
Adapted from Ackoff R. (1981). Creating
the Corporate Future. New York, NY: John
Wiley .
www.aacc.edu/future
The Future: Four P’s and a W
• Possible – what are the outer limits of what could
happen?
• Plausible/Probable – what are the more realistic
options – high probability (high impact?)
• Positive/Preferred – futures that we want,
are valued.
• Preventable – acting now to address undesirable
futures
• Wild cards
www.aacc.edu/future
Wild Cards
“An unpredictable factor”
http://www.wordwebonline.com/search.pl?w=wild+card
•
Wildcard Breakthroughs That Could
Change the World
Examples from Out of the Blue (Madison Books)
by John Petersen, Arlington Institute
•
•
•
•
Loss of intellectual property rights
Virtual reality revolutionizes education
Humans directly interface with the net
Extraterrestrials arrive
www.aacc.edu/future
Wild card example • “There's a guy in Michigan who says he's
figured how to get 70 percent efficiency
out of photovoltaic cells. Well, the average
efficiency in a photovoltaic cell is
somewhere around 10 percent. If it
increases by 50 percent then that's a
really big deal.”
GBN Global Business Network
http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=13130
www.aacc.edu/future
With a possible eye toward …
• Thinking about the future in your work
• Using the future as a teaching tool
• Thinking about your present in light of your
past and your future
• “Making” new realities
• Building personal futures.
• Dealing with uncertainty
www.aacc.edu/future
A Quick Exercise for
“Making” a Future
• What are some likely futures?
The visioning thing…
• Adapt? Anticipate? Proactive? Float?
• Possible, plausible, positive, preventable
• Proactive? … requires a little creativity!
www.aacc.edu/future
A futures building tool: a futures
wheel
Possible
impacts?
Possible
impacts?
The
Problem
www.aacc.edu/future
Your turn… building a future
?
Impacts?
?
Artificial
Intelligence
becomes
readily
available in
the learning
industry
?
?
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: Including futures in courses
around the curriculum
• What does teaching and learning about the
future demand?
1)Creativity
2)Product and reality construct- centered: results
3)Increased breadth, depth and collaboration –
cross disciplinary
4)Responsibility and respect
5)“Use it or lose it…” Active learning
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: Anatomy of a Futures
Exercise for Your Course
• Some Resources easy and handy on the left toolbar on www.aacc.edu/future
Questions & Answers @ the Future
Trends, forecasts and future views
Resources for Addressing the Future
Tools for Teaching the Future
Core Futures Book List
• Tools for teaching –
http://www.aacc.edu/future/teacherfeature.cfm
• Exercises - Enhancing Understanding of the Future
http://www.aacc.edu/future/exerciseshome.cfm
• Building a futures exercise
http://www.aacc.edu/future/futuresexercise.cfm
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: Start with the end first.
• 1)
Start with the end first.
What should learners “get
out of the exercise?” Some
possible futures outcomes
might include -
• Your Exercise:
What should learners “get out
of the exercise?”
• To understand the factors
that might influence a future
state.
• To use math or statistics to
estimate a future state or
condition.
• To use writing and thinking
strategies to outline a future
scenario for any discipline
or field… society itself.. the
list goes on.
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: What should learners be able to
DO when they’re finished?
• 2)
What should
learners be able to DO
when they’re finished?
• Your Exercise:
What should learners be able
to DO when they’re finished?
• To write about..
To calculate…
To creatively think
about…
To critically think about…
To apply course concepts
to…
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: Include the future in the
exercise.
• 3)
Include the future in
the exercise.
Some ways Use existing information and
ask learners to project it into
a future time.
Use future predictions and
learners critique the process
by which the estimate or
scenario was made.
Use an existing future
thinker’s view and ask
learners to think creatively
about the possibilities.
• Your Exercise:
Include the future in the
exercise.
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: What’s the format?
• 4)
What’s the
format?
• Your Exercise:
What’s the format?
What should the
learner’s product look
like when finished?
How long, short, big,
small, should it be?
Electronic? Other form?
When and how do you
want it delivered?
www.aacc.edu/future
Tasks: One example
•
•
•
•
•
•
Here’s one example:
ObjectivesIn this exercise you will be using an existing future thinker’s view, imagine
and write about the possibilities in a brief two-page impact assignment.
Steps to completion 1) Read "How are new capabilities within communications technologies
going to change the shape and scope of human communities?" by - Tim
Mack, President, World Future Society.
2) Describe the situation that Mack contends to be emerging in human
communities. What factors are causing this?
3) Suppose Mack is correct, in what ways will human life change by 2050?
Support your thoughts.
4) In what ways might Mack be “wrong?” Indicate why you think so.
5) Send this assignment to your professor by email at xxx@xxxx (or submit
it on date).
See
http://www.aacc.edu/future/exerciseshome.cfm for more examples of class
exercises by teaching faculty.
www.aacc.edu/future
Stop by IF @AACC…
• See questions and answers on the future at
http://www.aacc.edu/future/qandaarchives.cfm
• See back issues of futureportal at
http://www.aacc.edu/future/futureportalarch.cfm
• Use IF@AACC
(www.aacc.edu/future ) in your teaching and learning
www.aacc.edu/future