by Chris Mayer
By introducing students to multiple disciplines, a general education curriculum provides students opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind necessary for meaningful lives as citizens and members of the workforce. As currently designed, general education curricula do not provide students opportunities to demonstrate integrative learning related to the multiple disciplines they have studied. They also do not prepare students to systematically explore, think about, and gain insights from the future to make better decisions in the present. Using strategic foresight as the framework for a general education capstone course would address these gaps.
Enhancing General Education with Strategic Foresight
In the United States, completing a bachelor’s degree typically requires completing courses representing diverse disciplines that are not part of students’ specialized study (major). These courses compose students’ general education requirements, and their purpose is to provide students “the foundation of knowledge, skills, and competencies for a substantive undergraduate academic experience, a successful career, and a productive lifetime” (SUNY, 2023). This foundation is meant to promote integrative learning, which the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) describes as “an understanding and a disposition that a student builds across the curriculum and co-curriculum, from making simple connections among ideas and experiences to synthesizing and transferring learning to new, complex situations within and beyond the campus” (AAC&U, 2023). When they are capable of integrative learning, students are better prepared to address the problems and opportunities they will face as citizens and in the workplace using a multi-disciplinary approach. Also, as noted above, general education curricula are meant to provide opportunities for students to achieve the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to flourish in the future as students, citizens, and workers. As currently structured, many general education curricula fail to promote integrative learning or prepare students for their futures. Incorporating strategic foresight into general education curricula addresses these gaps.
A General Education Capstone Course
Challenges and Opportunities in General Education
In a typical general education curriculum, students complete individual courses that focus on single disciplines (e.g., history, math, philosophy). Because general education courses only address a single discipline, students often lack adequate opportunities to demonstrate integrative learning in ways that require them to bring together what they have learned in their general education studies. That is, students may complete their general education requirements without ever having a chance, or having very few chances, to bring together what they learn in their general education curricula to exercise integrative learning. This results in students not being well prepared to employ integrative learning once they complete their studies. It also makes it difficult for institutions to assess whether students are meeting general education learning goals related to integrative learning.
One way to provide students opportunities to employ integrative learning is through a general education capstone course that is designed to provide opportunities for students to bring together what they learned in the general education curriculum. One example of such a course is the University of Arizona Global Campus’ General Education Capstone Course (GEN 499). The course description communicates to students that the course offers “the opportunity to exhibit what you have learned using your well-developed critical thinking skills, communication skills, ethical reasoning skills, and information technology skills, as well as illustrate global citizenship and multicultural understanding” (University of Arizona Global Campus, 2023). This type of course provides the conditions for students to practice and see the value of integrative learning.
Because of the variety of disciplines that make up a general education curriculum, it is important that a capstone course has an organizing framework that provides students opportunities, in a way that does not appear forced, to identify connections across disciplines and synthesize the various disciplinary perspectives they encounter in the general education curriculum. Strategic foresight provides such a framework as it is multidisciplinary by nature, useful for completing the type of projects appropriate for a capstone course, and it also can help prepare students for life after they complete their degrees.
The Need for Strategic Foresight in General Education
Strategic foresight, “a decades-old discipline that allows us to create functional views of alternative futures and possibilities,” is a natural fit for inclusion in a general education curriculum (TFSX, 2019). Undergraduates in the United States do not typically encounter strategic foresight during their general education coursework nor are there many opportunities for students to study strategic foresight in depth during their undergraduate studies. In terms of traditional academic offerings, strategic foresight is taught at the certificate and graduate level at some universities. The University of Houston offers a professional certificate, graduate certificate, and Master of Science in foresight, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa offers a Master of Arts in Alternative Futures. Outside of the United States, two institutions stand out as models due to the futures studies components of their general education programs: Tamkang University in Taiwan and University of Turku in Finland. At Tamkang University, futures studies is a required general education course that is completed by 3000 to 5000 students each year (Inayatullah, 2003). This means that every student who receives an undergraduate degree from Tamkang University has a background in futures studies. The University of Turku offers undergraduate coursework in futures studies that contributes to their general education program, providing opportunities for undergraduate students to learn about futures studies (University of Turku, 2024). There are colleges and universities that offer degrees in futures studies or foresight. In addition to Tamkand University and University of Turku, other examples of degree programs in futures studies or foresight include the Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa offers an MPhil in Futures Studies, the Universidad Externado de Colombia offers a Master’s degree in Strategic Thinking and Foresight, and the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom offers a PhD in scenario thinking and scenario planning. With widespread exposure to futures studies only occurring at Tamkand University and University of Turku for undergraduates, and with very few futures degree programs around the world, most undergraduate students in the United States will complete their degrees without ever encountering strategic foresight.
Incorporating strategic foresight into a general education curriculum would address the tendency of people to rely almost exclusively on short-term thinking. One survey found: “that more than a quarter (27%) of Americans rarely or never think about their lives five years ahead; more than a third (36%) never think about something that could happen 10 years into the future; and more than half (53%) of Americans rarely or never think about their lives 30 years out.” (McGonigal, 2017). Richard Fisher also discusses the problem of short-term thinking when he writes, “If our descendants were to diagnose the ills of 21st-century civilization, they would observe a dangerous short-termism: a collective failure to escape the present moment and look further ahead” (Fisher, 2020). Short-term thinking has negative effects for individuals, organizations, and societies, and this provides another reason that a capstone with strategic foresight as its foundation would be beneficial to students and supports the purpose of general education.
Strategic Foresight and Integrative Learning
Students in a capstone with strategic foresight as its framework would have to employ multiple disciplinary approaches throughout the course. The Institute for the Future’s (IFTF) Cycle of Strategic Foresight demonstrates how this would occur, although other strategic foresight frameworks could be used for the course. The IFTF Cycle of Strategic Foresight consists of four phases: Prepare, Foresight, Insight, and Action (Pan, 2022). The Prepare phase involves collecting signals of change by scanning, which is defined by Maree Conway as “the art of systematically exploring the external environment for potential opportunities, challenges, and drivers of change likely to have an impact on your organisation’s future” (Conway, 2014, p. 120). One scanning approach that is often used is STEEPLE, which focuses scanning efforts on Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical areas. Students would seek signals of change in each of the STEEPLE categories, which overlap with many of the disciplines studied across the general education curriculum. For example, possessing a basic understanding of the disciplines of political science and philosophical ethics would help students identify signals in the political and ethical areas. Students would learn that STEEPLE is a valuable approach because it “ensures you’re not insulated by your own micro-environment. It encourages you to examine macro changes that are happening outside industries and organizations, and it protects you from being blindsided” (Mooreville, 2023). Using STEEPLE would ensure that students explored areas that may at first not seem relevant but that can provide rich insights about what is possible in the future.
In the Foresight phase, students would develop scenarios reflecting narratives of alternative futures. Creating a narrative that describes these futures will require the type of creativity that students develop by studying literature and will also require an understanding of the disciplines that the scenario reflects, such as changed economic, political, or environmental conditions or technological advances. For the Insight phase, students would identify the implications of each alternative future. Just as disciplinary knowledge informed the development of scenarios, so too would the analysis conducted during the Insight phase. This includes recognizing the interconnectedness of disciplines such as the possibility that economic changes may have an environmental impact or the relationship between social changes and political changes. Finally, through Action, students see how their analysis can enhance an organization’s decision making process. Given the implications identified, students can help organizations determine what action they can take in the present to enhance their readiness for the different futures articulated during the Foresight phase. Requiring students in a capstone course to complete a foresight project provides opportunities to employ strategic foresight and integrative learning to address a real-world issue. If designed properly, this project would also enable students to see the value of strategic foresight. Throughout this course, students would practice the broader skills reflected in general education learning outcomes such as the ability to think critically and creatively, communicate, and adopt a global perspective.
Course Description
Using strategic foresight as a framework, the capstone course would be designed to provide students opportunities to employ integrative learning in a way that is informed by what and how they learned across their general education curricula. The course would also prepare students to think more systematically about what is possible in the future and use what they learn to make better decisions in the present. The list below includes possible learning outcomes that identify what students will know and be able to do after completing the course.
By completing this course, students will be able to:
1. Define strategic foresight and its purpose(s)
2. Explain why it is ethically responsible and valuable in a practical sense to use strategic foresight to inform decision making.
3. Apply strategic foresight tools to discover and use valuable insights about the future to inform decision making.
4. Employ what they have learned in the general education course of study when applying strategic foresight tools.
5. Complete a multi-disciplinary strategic foresight project focused on an organization’s future.
6. Describe the change in thinking required to effectively employ strategic foresight.
Based on the course’s purpose and learning outcomes, here is a proposed course description:
This course serves as the general education capstone. It prepares students to think systematically about the future, so they are empowered to thrive, individually and professionally, in a variety of futures. The course introduces students to a strategic foresight framework and the process of identifying and analyzing trends and signals of change, creating narratives that describe alternative futures, and supporting the development of informed strategies that strengthen organizations’ readiness for the future. Students will use strategic foresight tools to complete end-of-course projects and, throughout the course, will be required to employ the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind they developed across the general education curriculum.
Conclusion
A general education capstone course with strategic foresight as its foundation would enhance the learning experience of students and would give many students the only chance they will have to learn and employ strategic foresight. This would address the overreliance on short-term thinking by providing students with a framework to engage in long-term thinking that prepares them to systematically explore, think about, and learn from the future to make better decisions in the present.[1]
References
Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). (2023). Integrative Learning
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Conway, M. (2014). Foresight Infused Strategy: A How-To Guide for Using Foresight in
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Fisher, R. (2020). Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking. Here’s how we escape.
MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/21/1009443/short-term-vs-long-term-thinking/
Inayatullah, S. (2003) Futures at Tamkang University. Futures, 35(2003), 1075–1077.
doi:10.1016/S0016-3287(03)00073-9
McGonigal, J. (2017). The American Future Gap. Institute for the Future (IFTF).
https://legacy.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/IFTF_TheAmericanFutureGap_Survey_SR-1948.pdf
Mooreville, A. (2023). How STEEPLE Analysis Informs Design Strategy. Delve.
https://www.delve.com/insights/how-steeple-analysis-informs-design-strategy
Pan, W. (2022). Content or Capacity: Scoping Futures Projects. Institute for the Future (IFTF).
https://www.iftf.org/insights/content-or-capacity-scoping-futures-projects/
The State University of New York (SUNY). (2023). General Education.
TSFX. (2019). Defining Strategic Foresight.
https://tfsx.com/2019/11/defining-strategic-foresight/
University of Arizona Global Campus (2023). 3 Reasons it is Necessary to Take GEN
499 – the General Education Capstone Course. https://www.uagc.edu/blog/3-reasons-it-is-necessary-to-take-gen-499-the-general-education-capstone-course
University of Turku (2023). Studying at the Finland Futures Research Centre.
https://www.utu.fi/en/university/turku-school-of-economics/finland-futures-research-centre/studying
United States Military Academy/North America/U.S.A
- This article reflects excellent feedback from a reviewer that addressed issues regarding clarity and substance. The views in this article are the authors and not the views of the United States Military Academy, the United States Army, or the Department of Defense. ↑
Author Affiliation
Chris Mayer
Associate Professor (Philosophy)
United States Military Academy (West Point)
