Futures Thinking + Design Fiction = Integrated Design Lab

What might the future look like? How might we harness the power of creativity to develop innovative solutions to problems that do not yet exist???

Welcome to the world of futures thinking.

Intermediate Integrated Design Lab (11th, ½ credit)

Only at @HFApgh... 

But I can see how you would think a class like this would be offered at CMU.

I am excited to pitch our 2016-17 course catalog to the students at HFA. In addition to Cultural Literacy and Introduction to Game Design, I am looking forward to teaching Integrated Design. I have been contemplating possible routes for taking our students' work in human-centered design to the next level... And pondering future problems and a world of possibilities looks like the perfect "sandbox" for our juniors to envision their roles as 21st century citizens and collaborators.

A Brief Course Overview: Futures Thinking & Design Fiction

In this course, students will envision the world as it might appear in the future. Together, students will collaborate upon defining the issues facing our society. They will then use design fiction to develop solutions to these problems. Considering the roles of urban planning and human centered design, students will utilize digital media to showcase and share their vision.


An emphasis will be placed upon understanding the current measures that businesses, governments, and philanthropic organizations are taking to improve the quality of life for individuals in our world today. 

Moonshot thinking is strongly encouraged for our students to develop the solutions for the world of tomorrow.



A Key Concept: To freely & frequently engage in moonshot thinking.

As long as your solution doesn't involve magic, it can be the creative spark to stoke the fires of curiosity and wonder

Video credit: Moonshot Thinking | Google

A Vision for Stakeholders in Our Future: Using Technology to Tell Our Story

This is a project-based learning, media production class focused on human centered design, design fiction, social justice, and futures thinking. 

We will rely upon technology to bring about our visions for the future:


Animoto, iMovie & Movie Maker: To create futuristic trailers, commercials, and public service announcements to present a vision of the future


YouTube: To upload digital media to the web and video-blog ideas for prototypes and reflections


Google Drawings: To create concept posters, infographics, and visuals to imagine future scenarios


Blogger: To collaboratively author and share posts presenting research, videos, and project updates

Google Hangouts On Air: To record and archive team meetings and empathy interviews with experts & community stakeholders

Google Forms: To survey individuals and collect data to use in creating design fiction and digital media

Google Maps: To map places where we will innovate and focus on futures thinking and design fiction

Google Slides: To construct a vision deck to present a glimpse of the future and solutions for tomorrow



A Key Concept: To use fiction, improv & role-play as a means of creating the suspension of disbelief.

Imagine a (near) future where anything can happen

Video credit: Productivity Future Vision | Microsoft

The Big Picture: A Showcase of Pitches & Prototypes

We will use our Gallop Strengths Assessment results as well as personality inventories to assemble into "idea teams" that will work cooperatively throughout the course of the semester. Idea teams will meet benchmark dates for submitting proposals, pitches, and prototypes. 

The culmination of the class will be a showcase of student learning. The students will present their vision for the future to our school as well as to an authentic audience of stakeholders from the community. 

Now, the specifics for this will vary, but the idea is that we will utilize a network of local partners and others within out expanded networked learning ecosystem. These experts will serve as consultants at different phases of the planning portion of the project, as well as offer guidance as mentors in their areas of expertise. 

Again, it is all dependent on the subjects that the students wish to explore and the mentors connecting with our students.

A PBL Rubric for Design Thinking and Process Evaluation:

Our Head of School / Chief Learning Officer shared this dynamite rubric that I've based the skeleton outline of this course upon. It comes from the Urban Assembly Maker Academy <www.uamakernyc>

Urban Assembly Maker Academy Design Thinking Rubric | Bauer, Hackett, Goldberg

1) Discover

2) Define

3) Design

4) Develop

5) Deliver

This is another portion of the course that is still in the "idea phase"... Hence the legal pad snapshot :^)

A Plausible Scenario: Making The Vision a Reality - Step by Step from Inception to Completion

1) Idea teams formulate a problem facing the City of Pittsburgh within the next 25 years.

2) Students begin an email correspondence with officials in Mayor Peduto's office and arrange a Google Hangout "focus-group panel" todiscuss issues

3) Students plan, make, and iterate based upon the initial discussion and subsequent research; they keep track of ideas via blog posts featuring written reflections, snapshots of prototypes, videos, etc.

4) Experts from the mayor's office (and new stakeholders/experts wanting to invest in our students' work) comment on the blogs, offering insights, guidance, and general mentorship

5) Students iterate and improve upon their vision, using design fiction and futures thinking to "flesh-out" problems and develop solutions

6) Idea teams construct video prototypes via Legos and/or other resources to make a low resolution prototype articulating this vision

7) All collaborators compile their work to assemble a vision deck to present at the showcase

8) We take the show on the road... first practicing and presenting in school, then making our way to the City County Building on Grant Street

Inspiration for Intermediate Integrated Design Lab

Thomas Steele-Maley 

- GEMS World Academy, Chicago, IL

Speculative Futures in Education: Using Design Fiction to Suspend Disbelief in Change

Backstory: Holy Family's Head of School / Chief Learning Officer Dr. Lisa Abel-Palmieri introduced me to Thomas Steele-Maley at the Active Learning Summit in July, 2015. Both are leaders in educational innovation. Like a moth to a flame, I am drawn to passionate leaders with a bold vision.

So, when I found myself in Chicago the following week, I was honored that Thomas took time out of his busy schedule to show me the view from the 10th floor of GEMS World Academy Campus, just bordering Millennial Park. The school has the look and feel of Google or IDEO's offices, like something out of Stanford's d-school. I was intrigued...

The week after that, I had a very similar experience back in Pittsburgh. Though Holy Family's Campus and program may not be in the heart of the Chicago financial district, it has heart and soul that makes it unique in every possible way.

I was not so much intrigued as inspired. This is a start-up high school of ninety students in two grades. The Pittsburgh equivalent of High Tech High, HFA is helping teens to build a new vision of themselves... I had the chance to be a part of something spectacular, to get in on the proverbial ground floor.

Lisa's vision to make Holy Family Academy an innovative independent Catholic High School serving families of limited economic means is a mission I subscribe to. Once upon I was a Theology student and President of the Students for Social Justice at St. Vincent College. This school was not just an opportunity for me to transform my practice in my eighth year of teaching... It represented an invitation to rediscover my vocation.

Now, I had a decision to make--would I leave my position of nearly 8 years as a teacher in a rural-suburban public high school (which happened to be in the town where I grew up) to become a part of Lisa's team at this new educational start-up school?

Needless to say--I saw a near future that could only become a reality if I took this chance. So I dove in, head first... I'm still swimming, navigating new and challenging waters of remaking learning. 

Looking back, as this school year draws to a close, it was the only choice that I could make.  I believe in the bold vision that is Holy Family Academy--our mindsets and the ability, as a teacher and coordinator of field based learning, to transform my own practice for a group of students who stand to benefit the most from an innovative and empathetic approach to maker-centered ed.  

This is the shorthand version of how I became a teacher and Coordinator of Educational & Cultural Affairs at Holy Family Academy. It began with a bold vision. Lisa and Thomas are the living embodiment of design thinker leaders, and I am immensely grateful for the both of them.

Intermediate Integrated Design Lab as a class is inspired by Thomas' presentation on "Design Fiction" and an "Aha-Moment" of clarity that I had (in the shower) thinking about taking action on this notion. And so, have been combing and cultivating resources for months. It's my educational head-nod to innovative design.

It is also a great reason to justify my income tax write-off of my subscription to Fast Company... Check out the haiku that I submitted on creativity - a concept we can all relate to!

Conclusion: Anab Jain's Thoughts on the Future & Unintended Consequences - The Need to Develop Context

How Will We Live? | Next Conference

The Above video from the Next Conference is a talk by Superflux's Director, Anab Jain. She is a rockstar, my friends. 

Jain’s video “How Will We Live?” is a bold vision in near futures thinking featuring an elderly man fed-up w/the smart fork & cane that his well-meaning children gave him to eat better & exercise. He gamed the sensors & ended up worse off than before. It is a paradigm for the way that unintended consequences can spiral out of control, especially when we merely focus on the "optics" of a situation--like big data taken out of its proper context. It can get very messy, very quick...

Every story needs to be framed within its proper context. Most importantly, to borrow a page from Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hirdle, we must not neglect the "human analytics" of things as we begin to dream of innovating for the world of tomorrow.

More thoughts on this topic after we pitch the courses to students in mid-May.

-j

--As Detective Columbo would say, "Just one more thing..."

How might you inspire students to build, make, and create a world in which they are the new generation of innovators, social entrepreneurs, leaders, dreamers, and doers???

JFK's Moon Speech | Festival of Curiosity | Courtesy of JFK Homecoming