Learning Reimagined

Imagination is so important to learning. I’m afraid that we’re all so busy with the press of the day that we haven’t time or opportunity to wonder or create. I’m so glad that someone in my neighborhood was creative and took the time to make an air conditioner interesting to this passerby. (I think the coolest part of the painting is the pigeon.)

I read a very interesting article I’d like to share with you related to the use of our imaginations. George Siemens over at elearnspace.org sends out an interesting weekly newsletter. It seems that he was asked to edit Innovate: Journal of Online Education. In the issue, Daniel W. Rasmus wrote a terrific piece, “Scenario Planning and the Future of Education“. Rasmus described Microsoft’s effort at scenario planning, a strategic planning method used by some organizations to get a sense (not an exact prediction) of what the future looks like in multiple scenarios. Microsoft used the process to think about what the future of work could look like and, seeing education or schooling as a kind of work, what learning experiences will look like in the future. It is exactly this kind of imagineering that educators, policy makers, students, parents, community leaders, and business people need to be involved in.

I say that for a few reasons. During the process, there is lots of spirited conversations around an important question:

Scenario planning begins with uncertainties about the question at hand, in this case, “What will work look like at the end of the next decade?”

And the conversations will be richest if people from different sub-groups get a chance to talk to other from different sub-groups. Not only will they be exposed to different world views, they’ll also be engaged in building relationships as a community.

Another reason such a process looks compelling is that enables groups to think about the future in a proactive way, rather than a reactive way. And with the four scenarios that get developed, a team or group would be able to have a way of gauging whether a particular decision made today will move them along a path toward a particular chosen scenario.

The final reason the scenario planning process is so important is that it spurs people to think in different ways. Educators in general have a rather insular view of the world. School seems unconnected to world events and the context in which we live. It’s impossible to stay insular if you begin thinking more widely about the world, learning’s place in it, and our tasks as educators. What kind of an institution must we create to get to our chosen scenario?

Read the article, examine the exhibits, look at the implications and let me know what you think.