Learning is not always fun. Sitting in boring lectures that never seem to end, trying to read textbooks that do not inspire or engage you, or trying to learn things by rote and memory without even trying them by yourself are teaching methodologies that can quench your enthusiasm, as happened to me. Now, as a teacher myself, I try to make learning fun and avoid boredom. That’s why I invented Futuropoly, a tool that students can use for learning and testing futures methods themselves. I have been using this method for teaching Korean business people in the Helsinki School of Economics for several years and for educating business people about futures tools.

The other inspiration for Futuropoly was Monopoly ®, possibly the world’s most famous game. Time has changed this famous game a lot. For example, there have been changes in the tokens. In the good old times the tokens included a dog, an old iron, and an old shoe and today you can find laptop, hamburger, and roller-skate tokens. The monetary system has changed from paper currency to credit cards, and the names of properties have also changed. These changes through the years have inspired a question: What would the Monopoly ® of the future look like? Well you would only know that by designing it. That is the impetus for the Futuropoly gameboard design.

As a teaching tool, Futuropoly incorporates the basic concepts of futures studies (megatrends, trends, wild cards, weak signals) and various methods (scenario method, futures table, futures wheel, and Delphi method). However, all the lectures are tightly connected to hands on futures work, i. e. designing the gameboard. Designing the gameboard is a process of learning how to use different futures techniques and applying them into practice from macro level thinking to practical future business cases. The process is as follows:

1. The first step is to choose the topic of the game. When I was teaching my Korean MBA students we used a topic for the game: Korea 2023. The topic can just as easily be very macro level (world 2050) or some industry (car industry 2040) or geographic region (Europe scenarios 2050).
2. In the Monopoly ® game there are cards called Chance and Community Chest. In Futuropoly these cards are replaced by wild cards and weak signals cards. In my teaching I present the definition of these concepts and make the students find out sources for weak signals and identify examples of them. In the case of wild cards I encourage students to think about the unthinkable and about unforeseeable events. The students’ task is to identify ten wild cards and ten weak signals. For this exercise, it is important to look for good information sources (the starting point of every futures activity!!).
3. When the cards are ready, it is time to start thinking about various scenarios, for example four different ones. In my courses I use the futures table method, where various drivers of the future are listed and given certain values. By combining various drivers with various values, one can get different kinds of scenario skeletons. In my courses, students spend considerable time for this scenario work, because I personally value scenarios as a good method for futures work in organizations too.
4. When the students end up with different scenarios (for example “Green Finland 2020”, “Red Finland 2020”, “Blue Finland” and “Brown Finland 2020”), then I instruct the group to identify the scenarios they prefer and dislike.
5. To make it ugly (and more challenging), the students are asked to design the Futuropoly gameboard for the scenario they dislike the most. For example, if they would have chosen the scenario Brown Finland 2020 as the most unpreferred, they would start to design my gameboard for that scenario. For the gameboard the groups have to think about the following:
   • How are successful businesses identified and represented on the gameboard? For example, in the brown Finland scenario (dystopia scenario), the security business would be a successful one.
   • What are the tokens that correspond to future customers and professions? (For example, one token can represent Rufus, a 34 year old unemployed male.) The tokens can also present something valid to the scenarios
   • What is the payment system? (For example, is there no money anymore, and why not? Do people pay with credit cards or mobile devices, or is there a return to paper currency?)
   • For what are taxes paid, and why?
   • What is the transportation system?
   • How is the game played (is it a computer game, hologram, mobile game, etc.)?

At the end, all the groups present their outcomes from their Futuropoly gameboards. It has been amazing how different and innovative all the outcomes have been so far. The key of this exercise is to give as much freedom to the students as possible for designing the gameboard. This inspires them to innovate. The students appear to have been quite happy designing their gameboards while they were also learning.

Dr. Kay Strong’s distinguished career began at Bowling Green State University (BGSU), Ohio, in the fall of 2000. As a new Ph.D. in econometrics, she taught across the disciplines of economics and applied statistics. She was promoted to the rank of tenured associate professor in 2004.

While attending a Creative Problem-Solving National Science Foundation (NSF) short course conducted by Sidney Parnes in Seattle, Washington during the summer of 2005, she was introduced to the field of future studies by Dr. Steven Steele, Director of the Institute for the Future at Anne Arundel Community College. Steve’s candid discussions about futures institutes during the session piqued her interest. In subsequent conversations, Steve provided her an overview of futuring and the possibilities for her college. Dr. Strong ventured into the seven-module courses devoted to future studies offered by AACC and became “hooked.” After extensive personal research, reading, and contemplative thought, she crafted a proposal for a “like institution” to be established at BGSU Firelands. The proposal made its rounds at the Firelands campus, the Dean’s Office, the Strategic Planning Committee, and among several interested individuals, after which Dean James Smith carried the proposal to the Provost office. With the acceptance of a few modifications requested by the Provost, the Initiatives for the Future (IF) at BGSU Firelands became operational in August 2006, with a stated mission to integrate the study of the future into the role and mission of BGSU Firelands.  

In the same month, the IF at BGSU Firelands established an institutional membership in the World Future Society. In the succeeding months, two learning communities were formed, the IF Learning Community (20 college members enrolled) under the auspices of the Center for Teaching and Learning Technology at Bowling Green and the “e-futuring” Learning Community (48 high school members enrolled) funded by Ohio Learning Network (OLN).

Accomplishments for the faculty IF Learning Community during the academic year 2006-07 included engaging in intellectual discourses on future trends and forecasts about education, the campus, and the community; integrating futures thinking exercises into twelve courses, the Office for Educational Outreach catalog, and the BEST Partnership Customized Training catalog; creating a Visioning strategy for the “Shaping the Future of the Firelands” community revitalization project; using a scenario-building exercise to produce four alternatives for the Future of BGSU Firelands in 2025, and developing a World Future Society conference presentation, which led to a manuscript accepted for publication in the Futures Research Quarterly. In addition, the IF Learning Community served as a “testing ground” for the development of the Introduction to Futuring course. FTR 200: Introduction to Futuring made its way over the hurdles of academic affairs and entered into the university course inventory for fall 2007.

Both high school teachers and students in the “e-futuring” Learning Community received instruction in futures concepts and methodologies before tackling an authentic learning project entitled “Education 2050: What will it look like?” Students were given wide latitude in the design of their respective projects. Projects from the “e-futuring” Learning Community were on display for the OLN EXPO June 2007 on the OSU-Newark campus. Other opportunities afforded by the IF project included community grant funding as well as numerous public presentations locally and regionally. With a colleague, Dr. Strong presented “Using Learning Communities to Foster Futuring: The BGSU Experience” at the 2007 World Future Society Conference.

After years standing in front of the classroom, Dr. Strong took a seat behind the teaching station. A sabbatical gave her the opportunity to complete an M.S. in the future studies program under the auspices of Dr. Peter Bishop at University of Houston. Says Strong, “My time at the University of Houston has been chocked full of new adventures. My thoughts whirled from new information; framework forecasting, post-modernism and critical theories, appreciative inquiry, strategic planning and leadership as transformational change. And my questions constantly challenged definition, interpretation and application.” Outside the classroom, her instruction continued as she worked alongside Dr. Bishop, the University of Houston program director, in community outreach activities.

During the 2008-09 academic year, Dr. Strong was instrumental in creating two public access teaching wikis, the Foresight Education Project and the Futures of the U.S. A prototype undergraduate course, Strategic Foresight, was developed as she and Dr. Bishop persevered to merge two divergent teaching styles, two personalities, and volumes of futures’ material into one sixteen week course. “The end product being a testimony to the best of our best!” There arose a number of ad-hoc opportunities to work alongside community groups. One particularly receptive one involved Margaret Fitzgerald, the coordinator of the gifted and talented program and coach in the Future Problem Solvers program in a local Houston school. In February, a particularly memorable event occurred with her middle school students. Ted Gordon was in-residence at the University of Houston and agreed to meet with these youngsters. A truly lively interchange transpired, and Dr. Strong envisions that Ted Gordon will be remembered by the youngest futurists as Werner von Braun was remembered by young space enthusiasts! 

This fall Kay joins Dr. Bishop, the futures program director, at the University of Houston to infuse futures thinking into the undergraduate curriculum building toward a minor in futures studies, while she continues working with teachers in Houston area schools to help “futurize” their teaching practice. As she puts it, “Having the appropriate academic credentials now allows me to reach for the first of my intended goals, development and delivery of a robust accredited undergraduate futures curriculum as a complement to the current graduate programs in the field.” The Strategic Foresight course is a first step, and the summer has yielded a second opportunity to bridge the undergraduate curriculum and futures studies. A partnership has been forged between the UScholars’ College Success Program (CSP), the formal home to some 5000 undergraduate students who are yet undecided about their college major. Some fifteen hundred undergraduates will participate in a mandatory 10-week one-credit hour course identified as Core 1101 this fall. The course has integrated content across three curricular areas – college life skills, career placement, and a strong futures perspective. The course outcomes are designed to assist participating students in declaring an undergraduate college major by strengthening personal life skills and self-management, by deepening understanding of career options, and by developing a greater self-efficacy in a world of uncertainty and growing complexity. While not a futures course specifically, Dr. Strong sees the first exposure opportunities to futures thinking as tremendous. A third opportunity to test the true versatility of futures studies will be facilitated this fall as she grounds an undergraduate fashion forecasting course in the rigors of long-term foresight.

Dr. Strong’s second goal parallels Dr. Bishop’s ambition for the futures studies, reaching into the pre-college educational environment and exposing K-12 students to futures thinking. She has completed development of a Pre-College Workshop curriculum which they anticipate delivering to teachers in Houston’s local school districts beginning this fall. And as a complement to the teachers’ workshop, she hopes to create a dedicated Futures’ Summer Camp for K-12 students.

In addition to her Ph.D. in economics from Southern Illinois University in 2000, Dr. Strong has a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Central Michigan University and a Master of Arts in international affairs from Ohio University. She is a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the International Honor Society in Economics, and has been selected for inclusion in Who’s Who of American Women 2008-09, Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and Educators, and Who’s Who in Collegiate Faculty. In addition, she was named BGSU Firelands Distinguished Creative Scholar 2006 and the 2005 Kappan of the Year by Phi Delta Kappa BGSU Firelands Chapter. Her publications on international finance appear in the Journal of Economics and Finance and Journal of Business and Economic Perspectives. Articles on teaching economics appear in College Teaching Methods & Style, the AURCO Journal, and at the U.K.’s national centre of excellence in the development and use of technology-based methods in teaching, learning and research, the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol. She has presented numerous papers at international, national, and regional conferences. Her non-academic positions include working as a supervisory economist for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Building on her previous experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, Dr. Strong volunteers for the Teach for Friendship Foundation (TFF) at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China during summers.

Says Dr. Strong, “I am at the beginning of my journey as an educational futurist, a master’s degree in hand and my objective is modest, integration of futures inquiry into the experience of learners across the curriculum and throughout the educational structure. And to think that all this resulted from a chance encounter at a NFS workshop devoted to creative problem-solving!”