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WFS Learning Section Bulletin
FUTUREtakes publishes the WFS Learning Section Bulletin by special arrangement with the World Future Society (WFS) Learning Section Steering Team. Issues of the WFS Learning Section Bulletin typically include foresight education exercises, an educator spotlight column, and synopses of the annual WFS Education Summit. *
Yvonne Andres, Wendy Schultz, Tom Abeles, Ron Newell, Kay Strong
Issues
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Fall-Winter 2009-2010
- Synopsis: WFS Education Summit 2009
- Educator Spotlight – Joseph Voros
Amplifying and adding to various key points of the first-ever WFS sponsored education summit in 2008, more than 80 educators, education innovators, and students participated in Education Summit 2009 … A pervasive theme was the enabling power provided not only by new digital tools including mobile devices but also by innovative approaches to learning – enabling power that extends beyond students and educators, extending to prospective employers… The cultivation of 21st century skills – collaboration, creative and critical thinking, leadership, speaking, writing, trans-disciplinary thinking, and proactive anticipatory thinking – is welcome news to a growing number of employers, as is the increased focus on addressing real challenges in economics, the environment, science and technology, and the sociopolitical arena. The new learning approaches presented at Education Summit 2009 ranged from non-mainstream trans-disciplinary topics to nurturing anticipatory thinking, from cultivation and leveraging of curiosity to student creation of their own learning material… various presenters shared their own perspectives and observations on the next frontiers in education, some of which transcend commonplace notions of educational institutions – for example, partnerships with businesses and NGOs, cross-border course offerings and degree programs, and trans-institutional academic “credit banks.” More→
Dr. Joseph Voros, a senior lecturer on the faculty of business and enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, began his career as a physicist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and worked on mathematical extensions to the General Theory of Relativity, after which he worked several years in Internet-related companies, including a stint at Netscape Communications Corporation, before becoming a professional futurist. He has been associated with Swinburne since early 2000, initially as a project consultant in the former Australian Foresight Institute. In mid 2000, Dr. Voros was appointed as a foresight analyst in Swinburne's own top-level strategic planning unit, and in that practitioner role he was involved in the building of a practical organisational strategic thinking capacity based on the use of foresight concepts and methodologies. More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Spring-Summer 2009
- Learning futures and having fun – Futuropoly, by Elina Hiltunen
- A Letter to My Nephew, by Stephen Aguilar-Millan
- Educator Spotlight – Kay Strong
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. More→
Dear Peter, thank you for your note. I am pleased that your studies have gone well and I am both surprised and flattered that you see your calling as a Futurist and that you have asked me for advice in entering the profession. I guess that the best single piece of advice that I can give you is to beware Hume’s Law. More→
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. More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Winter 2008-2009
- Education Summit 2009 – Announcement and Program
- World Future 2009 – additional sessions of interest to educators
- Educator Spotlight – Tom Lombardo
The Education Summit, scheduled in conjunction with “World Future 2009: Innovation and Creativity in a Complex World,” will explore the cutting edge of education. A full-day program, the Summit will look at what tomorrow holds for education, including new technologies, new techniques and approaches to teaching futures, and visions for the coming decades. More→
The following additional sessions scheduled for “World Future 2009: Innovation and Creativity in a Complex World,” will be of interest to educators and others interested in education (for updates or additional details, visit www.wfs.org) More→
Tom Lombardo, Ph.D. is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Future Consciousness in Scottsdale, Arizona and a leading researcher, writer, and speaker on the topic of the future. The author of The Evolution of Future Consciousness and Contemporary Futurist Thought, Dr. Lombardo brings a unique and powerful synthesis of contemporary science, psychology, and philosophy to the field of future studies and futures education. An award-winning educator with over thirty years professional experience, he has supervised college faculty and faculty departments and designed innumerable college courses… More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Fall 2008
- Synopsis: WFS Education Summit 2008
- Educator Spotlight – Art Shostak
- Foresight Education Project
More than 60 educators participated in the recent WFS-sponsored Education Summit which featured the perspectives of college faculty, a school superintendent, and four student participants in online education programs. The pervasive themes throughout the summit were threefold – the desired objectives of future studies, the need for next steps beyond “one-size-fits-all” educational frameworks, and the ways to implement transformational change. Other topics extended from predictability to online education, community colleges, charter schools, and adjunct faculty, even extending to present-day factory model schools and their possible successors.More→
Professor Art Shostak’s involvement in education dates back to 1947, when, as a wide-eyed 10-year old boy he watched his no-nonsense mother create a PTA organization, rally its rag-tag membership of working-class women, and lead them in storming the offices of the austere and distant Brooklyn Board of Education. They sought the re-designation of his K-6 public school as a junior high school (grades 7-9), as that would keep their children in the old neighborhood for three more school years and assure their influence over area schooling. and avoid busing to a distant school. To the astonishment of cynics, they won their re-designation fight – and he got his first up-close demonstration of the ability of aroused citizens to alter educational futures. More→
Our Vision – “To teach as much about the future as we teach about the past.” More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Spring-Summer 2008
- Learning Section – next projects
- Next issue – Education Summit 2008 synopsis
… Based on the level of interest at the Education Summit (which will be summarized in the next issue of the Learning Section Bulletin) – and the feedback from four students enrolled in online learning programs – the Steering Team is poised to proceed with new projects focused on promoting and supporting futures education programs worldwide. One general effort will be to support existing educators through networking, module sharing and review, telephone consulting on course materials and curricula, and possible development of additional course materials (for example, scenarios, frameworks, learning tools, modules, and other course materials). A parallel initiative will be to help develop a new cadre of educators in future studies, and an adjunct goal is to monitor trends, developments, and possible wild cards that can impact education and learning, particularly future studies… More→
The next issue of the WFS Learning Section Bulletin will include a detailed synopsis of the recent WFS-sponsored Education Summit, which featured the perspectives of college faculty, a school superintendent, and four student participants in online education programs. Partial list of topics→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Winter 2007-2008
- The WFS Education Summit, Learning for Tomorrow
- College Credit for WFS Conference Attendance
- World Future 2008 – additional sessions of interest to educators
The 2008 Education Summit, scheduled in conjunction with “World Future 2008: Seeing the Future Through New Eyes,” will explore the cutting edge of education. A full-day program, the Summit will look at what tomorrow holds for education, including new technologies, new techniques and approaches to teaching futures, and visions for the coming decades. More→
… Anne Arundel Community College is offering the three credit hour course, FTR-100, Exploring the Future. Section 840 is a hybrid course that integrates attendance at the World Future Society Conference in Washington, D.C. (July 25-28) and online course modules before and after the conference. Student projects will integrate conference experiences. The course provides an opportunity to investigate the future in a changing world. Using tools and perspectives across fields of study and cultures, students expand foresight and build the future. The professor is Dr. Stephen F. Steele, Institute for the Future @ AACC… More→
The following additional sessions scheduled for “World Future 2008: Seeing the Future Through New Eyes” but not part of the Education Summit, will be of interest to educators and others interested in education (for updates or other additional details, visit www.wfs.org) More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Fall 2007
- Now in its Early Months…
- Visualize the Future!, a futures learning tool by Professor Steve Steele
Now in its early months, the WFS Learning Section has made considerable progress in establishing several functional networks of educators and other interested parties. We now have a listserv in place, a page on the World Future Society website, and space in this international magazine, FUTUREtakes. These nominal first steps have great potential value, and a key objective is to ensure that these resources and our emerging structure are thoroughly used to support our primary objectives, which are two-fold – promoting and supporting futures studies in the classroom, and identifying trends and drivers that will influence education in the next two decades. A key initiative for 2008 is the “Education Summit,” which will be featured at the 2008 World Future Society meeting in Washington, DC More→
This is a simple but powerful first exercise to get learners focused on the future. It may be used any time in a learning experience to draw attention away from and beyond the present. Experience in teaching courses and modules on the future has indicated a tendency among learners to regress to the present throughout the course. In all fields of study, from time to time it is helpful to move learners beyond the present and refocus on the future. This little exercise can help participants start thinking “like futurists.” More→
WFS Learning Section Bulletin, Summer 2007
- Launching the WFS Futures Learning Section…
- Living in 2050: Nine Trips to the Future and Back, a futures learning tool by Professor Steve Steele
In the late nineties, futurist Jim Dator pointed out with some concern that while the study of futures had existed many years, futures learning had not found a toehold in academic departments and training programs in the world’s colleges and corporations. Perhaps one reason for this is the lack of a concentrated effort to organize and promote futures learning. While several organizations have produced a long history of futures investigation, a longstanding, transcending, group exclusively focused on futures learning has failed to find traction. Attendees at two organizational sessions at the Toronto and Minneapolis World Future Society annual meetings in 2006 and 2007 showed interest in establishing a futures learning group. More→
I am pleased to share a futures learning tool that we are using at Anne Arundel Community College in anticipation that it may be useful at other colleges and universities. The objectives of the methodology are as follows: to push learners time horizons well beyond the present, to encourage creative thinking, to enhance synergistic thinking among emerging trends, and to provide a “risk free” time zone for innovation. More→
Education Summit 2009 continues!
* DISCLAIMER: FUTUREtakes is independent of, but works in close cooperation with, the World Future Society. The resources and content provided on this page and linked pages do not represent official statements by, or positions of, the World Future Society or any of its chapters.