Do you want to think about the future with more creativity and optimism? Do you want to see what’s coming faster, so you can be better prepared for disruptions and more in control of your future? Do you want to get better at changing what’s possible today – in your company, your industry, your community, and in your own life? This Specialization will introduce you to the practice of futures thinking, as developed and applied for the past 50 years by the Institute for the Future, a Silicon-Valley-based research and learning group founded in 1968. You’ll master essential foresight techniques. You’ll meet leading professional futurists. And you’ll choose one or more future topics you want to investigate with your new foresight skills. The Futures Thinking specialization is for anyone who wants to spot opportunities for innovation and invention faster. You can gain the skills and confidence to help YOU become someone who makes the future, instead of letting the future happen to you. You'll develop a more future-oriented mindset to make positive changes in your own life, as you start to see new possibilities more clearly and craft the personal future you want. This specialization is based on the “How to Think Like a Futurist” workshops taught by Jane McGonigal, PhD for Stanford University Continuing Studies. By taking this specialization, you'll have access to key lessons and tools from the Institute for the Future’s professional “Foresight Training” certification program.
WK
This is great foundation of future thinking. Also, this course is simple enough for beginner. I highly recommended to take this course for who want to start thinking about the future.
DM
I'm really liking these classes. They are doing exactly what I wanted which is getting me to think about things in a bigger way.
FY
Excellent course. Fantastic videos and training materials. I am amazed at how well-produced this series is. Congratulations.
KP
Activities were so just making my mind work and fun to do! You can step yourself as a futurist as i did. I just loved Future wheel the most!!
MC
Fantastic Course! Filled with tools to help you make the world a better place!
TF
Excellent overview of foresight studies. Nothing in any of the follow-on courses is technically hard, but I suspect putting it into practice is a bit like the game of Go: the rules are the easy part.
EE
The instructor is very clear and it very easy to follow her. The assignments are interesting and really make you see things from a different perspective.
IV
Interesting topics, although you definitely need to practice them a lot to fully internalize the concepts and familiarize yourself with all the practical tools etc,
AA
One of the best course I did on Coursera. Thanks for Institute for the Future Team and especially to Dr Jane McGonigal.
JC
Worth taking it. Applicable skills in other fields; transferrable soft skills in any job.
SM
very well done - loved the videos and the reading material and the quizzes and assignments - a course that really helped gain new and crucial skills and make the learning enjoyable
DM
Great content and well structured. The exercises allow you to build on your skills and already have you thinking about a catalog of signals.
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Excellent for people who think what the future will be like and how they could connect the past to the present and look into the possible scenarios of the future of their choice. Great stuff!!
This is the most comprehensive course on Futures Thinking available online. I work in Innovation Consulting and so looking at trends and shifts is a key aspect of my job. I have no formal education in this area and have found this course has moved my thinking on about foresight in a significant way. For one, I thought of this skills as a specialist practitioner skill but it clear that this is a skill we all can use to create the future we want. I have particularly found the assignments very interesting and its gotten me to think about the futures domains I am passionate about which are the Future of Aging and the Future of Work and learning, which are somewhat interlinked. The instructor Jane McGonigal is a rockstar in her own field of game design and an amazing presenter. I have signed up for more than 20 courses on Coursera over the years and this has to be the best in terms of content quality and delivery. Some feedback for the course creators, if I had to find an area more improvement it with with the IFTF Research Director paired conversations, the pace felt slow and the interviewer repeated too much of what was being said by the interviewee.
I really liked how this course was structured with videos, readings, and activities. It has a nice flow, and lots of helpful information. I would highly recommend this for any aspiring futurist.
This course exceeded my expectations. It was fun and engaging and immensely useful for me both professionally and personally. I immediately enrolled in the next course in the specialization.
Very good course. Concrete, practical and well thought out. Fascinating subject matter. Amazing to have virtual access through this platform to Silicon Valley's cutting edge thinking!
Not what I expected. They are too hard trying to sell their Institute and the actual program of being a "futurist". I would recommend you try it before you buy it.
Excellent overview of foresight studies. Nothing in any of the follow-on courses is technically hard, but I suspect putting it into practice is a bit like the game of Go: the rules are the easy part.
Interesting course on how to see signals and drivers for a potential future.
Excellent introductory course and inspiring to further pursue the topic. It keeps me engaged during other chapters of the Futures Thinking specialization. I would recommend it to anyone, not only to someone from the creative industry. There are many memorable and playful tasks and activities. Additionaly there are tons of supplementary materials to read. I can see benefits of Futures Thinking approach in design and I haven't even completed the specialization yet.
The course helps you sort out ideas if you've been working on innovation for some time, using intuition to choose technologies and creating alternatives for those futures. It turns out that these explosions in my brain are signals and the course has also helped me classify them and work with alternative futures.
If you are interested in innovation do not forget to do this course
super course. my compliments to coursera to offer such first class opportunity.
I also would like to thank IFTF for such extraordinary specialisation package that will be sought after more and more every day. It feels good that the experts are striving to share their vast knowledge and experience.
I am looking forward to completing the 5 courses all together soon.
Cheers
The course has been life-changing, as it convinced me about the benefits of thinking far off into the future and how to do so, to create a world we want to live in.
HOWEVER there are little to no indications about when your essay answers will be shared publicly with other students so be careful about writing anything too personal or confidential if that's a concern.
Greate course and well thought through tuition and materials. Great introduction and perfect teaser to make on to want more. I did enjoy the course, as well incorporated interaction with other students. To be exposed to other views and ideas is so refreshing. Thank you Jane and IFTF for the generous sharing of your thinking, tools and output of your work!
The course is very good and my advice follows: 1 The main teacher is so good, but seeing her all courses as the main teacher sometimes is tired. 2. The examples sometimes look repetitive as an example future of the game, the future of education, pandemics, and so on. As a result, learn new things are complicated because the examples are the same.
It was a great course! I really enjoyed all the activities and found the learning resources to be very thought-provoking. I think that this is the perfect time to take this specialty for we need to have the ability to see different possibilities in our future. As one of the readings said, "the best way to predict the future is to invent it."
A fantastic introduction that manages to capture the polarities of the practical/understandable with the philosophical/theoretical. It should be a huge hit and I suspect many will want to continue their futures studies!
Really interesting course about the tools of foresight- lightweight, lively and interesting, with clear and satisfying assignments. Looking forward to the next course!
Peer review process is flawed and should not be a score-generating or gating process. I am stuck trying to finish a course because one assignment was graded incorrectly by a reviewer who is not using the rubric correctly.
Great introduction to futures thinking. I've really enjoyed the videos and tools so far
I do not like having to wait on other to peer review submissions because you don't know when you'll be awarded your certificate. Great information otherwise, but waiting on peer review is unnecessarily stressful rather than getting a grade right away.