Here is a paper Peter wrote on Dexign Futures’ class. It was presented at the IASDR 2019 Design Revolutions conference.

Scupelli, P., Candy, S., & Brooks, J. (2019) Teaching Futures: Trade-offs Between Flipped Classroom and Design Studio Course Pedagogies.  IASDR 2019: Design Revolutions. September 2-5, 2019. Manchester, UK.

20 mins – Bringing the reflections from Week 1 back in class. 

Break out into groups of 4. 

• 5 minutes: discussion in your group and reading the comments you received to your Week 1 reflection.
• 1-minute: Have one person report back (60 seconds) to the whole class common threads and differences you noticed in your small group.

15 mins: Discuss your questions from “How might futurists give futures scenarios depth?” (OLI page 10):

Jamais Cascio’s critiques…

1. Limitations of scenarios that (a) focus only on technological advances and missing how people live; (b) ignore unintended uses; and (c) focus only on the dominant class missing the broader impact on all of society.
2. The second flaw involves ignoring human nature in futures scenarios.  
3. The third flaw, entails lacking respect for the intelligence of the audience (e.g., make your case and trust your audience to choose the better scenario; provide equally seductive and terrifying scenarios that prepare for success and failure).

Discuss and debrief one of the questions/comments you posted:

• I’d be interested to hear a bit more about his stance on brands and how he reached his current opinion on their long term effect (as, in my opinion, they are something that has a huge influence on our current world/lifestyle).
• Aren’t “good, bad and middling” scenarios inherently guided on our own morals? How do we make bad scenarios as “equally appealing”?
• How do we account for unintended uses? Do we simply recognize that they are likely to occur, or is there a way to understand how something might be used in an unintended way?
• How often are designs actually influenced/improved by these critiques? Designers often look towards the ideal, and I’m afraid we miss a lot of the edge cases most of the times.

• 5-minutes  – select and discuss one question in your group
• 1-minute – each group report back to the whole class. 

5 mins: Masdar images v1 – upload and critique:

1. Please upload a digital image of Step 6. Masdar Images V1.

• (a) Instructions
• (b) Masdar Rubric Cascio Critiques Step 6-10

10 mins: Round 1 critique Pair 1. (step 7)

10 mins: Round 2 critique Pair 2. (step 7)

5 mins: reflect on the feedback you received individually (step 8)

• Submit a link your slides for grading.

5 mins: Recap

Today we discussed the three flaws of futures scenarios according to Jamais Cascio.

1. Limitations of scenarios that (a) focus only on technological advances and missing how people live; (b) ignore unintended uses; and (c) focus only on the dominant class missing the broader impact on all of society. 
2. The second flaw involves ignoring human nature in futures scenarios.  
3. The third flaw, entails lacking respect for the intelligence of the audience (e.g., make your case and trust your audience to choose the better scenario; provide equally seductive and terrifying scenarios that prepare for success and failure). 

We applied these critiques to your Masdar Scenarios and used the critiques to inspire new products and scenarios.

5 mins: Assign Homework

• Homework OLI page 12 “Visions of futures”
• Finish Steps 7 & 8

 

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