Skills: Analysing, Generating Solutions, Collaboration, Presenting, Societal awareness, Reflecting, Resilience
Disciplines: The tools and ways of work that are being taught can be applied on all disciplines. Several of the disciplines we will use as cases are derived from the fields of: Education, Digital media, International Relations and Public Administration, Public Health Management, and many more!
Themes: Future foresight, Resilience, Skills development, Design thinking
Type: Honours Class: This course combines theory and practice to learn how to tackle a complex issue.
Admission requirements
This course is an (extracurricular) Master Honours Class aimed at talented Master’s students. Admission will be based on academic background, GPA and motivation.
Description
Students are being prepared for the jobs of the future yet how can you even know what that future looks like? During this course you will learn and practice hands-on future foresight tools that can be applied to any topic. What if ChatGPT will be as normal as a spelling checker? How will artificial intelligence affect education and the future of work? What would a real Metaverse society look like? And could these tools have been used to anticipate something like the Covid pandemic or the changing global order?
As you make use of these emerging tools and technologies, you will engage with stakeholders about future scenarios they and you think are important.
At the end of the course, you will design and host a future foresight game workshop, during which you will apply everything you’ve learned during the course with your stakeholders and other interested parties.
Course objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will have:
developed new perspectives on societal changes;
improved on how to deal with uncertainties;
uilt resilience when faced with future changes;
used creative skills to contribute to a solid analysis of future issues;
developed a futures thinking mindset;
learned how to adapt to changing circumstances, by internalizing ways to respond flexibly to changes;
learned how to apply design thinking principles to problem solving.
Programme and Timetable
The sessions of this class will take place from 17.15 - 19.00 on the following Tuesdays :
Session 1: October 31
Session 2: November 7
Session 3: November 14
Session 4: November 21
Session 5: November 28
Session 6: December 12
Session 7: December 19
Session 8: January 23
Session 9: January 30
Location
Pieter de la Court building, room 0B.23
Course load
This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours.
8 Seminars of 1.75 hours (participation is mandatory) (15.75 hours)
Literature reading: 60 hours
Practical work: 16 hours
Future foresight game design: 50 hours
Assessment
The assessment methods will look as follows:
The students will design a future foresight scenario and game around one of the topics that have been discussed during the meetings. The grade will be based on participant evaluations and design.
The students will keep a journal during the course on the future scenarios.
Students can only pass this course after successful completion of all partial exams.
Reading list
Book: Imaginable – Jane McGonigal
Parts of the Futures Thinking Specialization on Coursera.
Other possible literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.
Brightspace and uSis
Brightspace will be used in this course. Upon admission students will be enrolled in Brightspace by the teaching administration.
Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for the Master Honours Classes. Your registration will be done centrally.
Registration
Submitting an application for this course is possible from Monday, 25 September until and including Sunday, 15 October 2023 through the link on the Honours Academy student website.
Note: students don’t have to register for the Master Honours Classes in uSis. The registration is done centrally before the start of the class.
Contact
Yentl Croese: y.croese@llinc.leidenuniv.nl
Experience Designer, Leiden Learning and Innovation Centre, Leiden University.
Melissa Amoros Lark: m.y.amoros.lark@llinc.leidenuniv.nl
Project Manager, Leiden Learning and Innovation Centre, Leiden University.