Futuring: The Art and Science of What Comes Next
Bryan Alexander is an internationally known futurist, researcher, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future. He is the recipient of the Council of Independent Colleges Academic Leadership Award, and has been featured in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and on MSNBC. He recently published Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education, which won an Association of Professional Futurists award.
Overview
How can humans better glimpse the future? Well, obviously only a time machine can solve that problem entirely. As those are hard to find, this class walks students through the forecasting field’s state of the art methods. They include horizon scanning, the Delphi method, trends analysis, scenario creation, and design fiction. Each methodology offers its own advantages and disadvantages, but all of them are quite fascinating.