Foresight Knowledge & Methods 1

FST80006 25 Credit Points Hawthorn

Duration

  • One Semester or equivalent

Contact hours

  • 72 hours

On-campus unit delivery combines face-to-face and digital learning.

Prerequisites

nil

Corequisites

nil

Aims and objectives

This double unit begins the journey of producing defensible futures works meeting the standards of the international academic and applied futures “conversations” and discourses. It introduces students to a grounding of foresight methodologies and the sources of a knowledge base for future studies. The module focusses on the organisational aspects of foresight studies.

Students will be required to undertake a number of tasks that utilise different foresight methods as formative assessments during the course. They will also be required to present these to the group, and undertake one of the methods as a group project. The summative assessment will then be a comparative evaluation of the application of a range of foresight methods within a particular context. Hence the summative assessment builds on and draws from the formative assessments on which they will have received feedback both from the tutors and from the group.
 
 
On completion of this unit, students should be able to:
  • Critically reflect on real world artefacts using key ideas, concepts, models, procedures, tools, methods, overview
    “maps” and literature in the Futures Studies and Foresight disciplinary environment;
  • Design a scanning approach to meet a strategic need;
  • Formulate futures communications appropriate to the different ways in which “mental models” and ways of thinking
    make meaning and sense of the world in undertaking futures/foresight activity;
  • Communicate the results of foresight analysis to a decision maker;
  • Create personal possibilities for practical application of futures/foresight in organisational or other contexts from
    having developed knowledge and insights in own values and thinking systems;
  • Critically understand the strengths and weaknesses of a range of foresight tools and be able to design an
    organisational process using these.
  • Apply relevant systems thinking approaches to a contemporary business, community or environmental issue and
    report on the findings.