Foresight Development
Futures Studies Education + Personal Foresight Skills Practice

The ASF community has developed a required (core) introductory undergraduate course in Foresight Development (futures studies education plus personal foresight skills practice) in Fall 2007. The first instance of this unique course now exists at the University of Advancing Technology, a distinguished four year university in Tempe, AZ, whose mission is educating innnovators of the future.

Course materials are being placed online, creative commons licenced, for all futures studies educators to use or borrow from in coming years. Promoting the spread of futures studies curricula and personal foresight enrichment programs at the undergraduate level are major priorities for our organization.

Interested in keeping tabs on our efforts in this space? Join ASF's Facebook group, Global Futures Network, for more. Would you like to sample or help improve course resources? Visit our Course Wiki, FD@UAT-CourseWiki.

Course Intro:

Today's students face a very different world than their parents did. They will live longer, change careers faster, learn new skills more frequently, and have more freedom than ever to choose their experiences, social networks, and values. The rollercoaster of scientific and technological (sci-tech) change runs faster every year, spinning us irreversibly toward a very extraordinary future. Our planet is wiring up into a vast, instantaneous, transparent and increasingly intelligent global network, just one of many sci-tech innovations creating amazing new opportunities for business and society.

Yet there are great challenges ahead as well. Fundamental problems (hunger, drought, disease, overpopulation, poverty, underemployment, corruption, human rights violations, violent conflict) persist in the developing world, and the most developed countries (MDCs) are gaining new problems (obesity, addiction, dependence, institutional educational decline, media centralization, erosion of democracy) related to their affluence. What’s more, several global problems (environmental degradation, climate change, global security, rising energy cost) are likely to get worse before they get better, and the world is now so interconnected that big problems anywhere are becoming everyone's problem. At the same time, cultural change is in some ways slowing down as our technology speeds up all around us. Economic, political, legal, social, environmental, and even ethical standards—a broad set of global human rights and entitlements—are beginning to appear in every nation on the planet.

In our lifetimes, benefits and leverage from the positive use of science, technology, business, politics, and social activism will only get more powerful, while "immune systems" guarding against the rising potential dangers in our high-tech world will only get more important. Meanwhile automation, computers, robots, and avatars/agents are progressively exceeding our biological capabilities, and becoming increasingly intimate extensions and representations of our individual selves. What will tomorrow's "biologically-inspired" information technology do in this regard? What an extraordinary, special time to be alive.

Humans have practiced creating, discovering, planning for, and benefiting from change since the dawn of our species. Foresight is an empowering skill to have, and something you can get better at every year of your life, with practice. Come learn how.

Course Description:

Foresight is the act of looking to the future. This course helps you learn better global, business and personal foresight, so you can better enjoy and manage your own future. This course will explore the big picture history of accelerating change from universal, historical and technological perspectives, and consider global trends that are affecting individuals, society, businesses and governments. Additionally, the course will examine how organizations make bets on the future, and gives the student a chance to explore career prospects in a variety of fields. Finally, discussion of how biology, psychology, community and culture help and hinder personal thinking about the future will be discussed. We will explore four fundamental foresight skills: creating the future (innovating products and services); discovering the future (models, trend identification and analysis); planning the future (developing shared goals and processes); and benefiting in the future (achieving measurable positive environmental, social, or economic results). Assignments will be personalized to your own foresight goals, and include brief readings, writing, discussions, debates, visuals, film, podcasts and games.

Learning objectives include:

• Critical Thinking
• Integral Thinking
• Systems Thinking
• Foresight Development
• Acceleration Awareness
• Lifelong Learning and Study Skills
• Evolutionary and Developmental Models of Change
• Creating, Discovering, Planning and Benefiting Skills
• Universal, Global, Societal, Organizational, and Personal Systems Thinking
• Basic Technology, Economic, and Sociopolitical Literacy (History, Current Affairs, Futures Studies)

Contact John Smart if you would like to join ASF's curriculum development or review communities for this course.

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