A Graduate-Level Survey of Futures Studies: a Curriculum Development Project

DOCUMENT ED 071 :632 BE 103 826 AUTHOR Miller, David C.; Hunt, Ronald L. TITLE A Graduate-Level Survey of Futures.Studies:A Curriculum Development Project. FinalReport.. INSTITUTIOI California State Univz, San Jose.. SPONS AGENCY National Center for Educational Research and Development (DREW /OE); Washington, D.C. Regional Research Program., PUB DATE 31 .Aug 72 CONTRACT OEC-9 -71 -0023(057) NOTE 316p.. EDRS PRICE MF-S0.65 HC-S13.16 DESCRIPTORS Curriculum Development; *Educational Technology; Graduate Study; *Higher Education; *Instructional Media; *Multimedia Instruction; *TeachingMethods IDENTIFIERS *Futures Studies ABSTRACT An introductory graduate levelcourse curriculum for FuturesStudies was conceived, designed, and testedwithin the. Cybernetic Systems Program and the InstructionalTechnology Department, School of Education, CaliforniaState University, San Jose. The curriculum consists of a series of 15learning modules including 2 devoted to a standard study procedure,and 13 treating the following concepts: the time-line appraisingfutures-reports; futures studies methods; ctange; alternativefutures; forecastability; confidence in forecasts;attitudes toward futures; causality and futures; manageability of futures;values and futures; transcendental change; and stability./An experimental.offering of the course emphasized student development of multimedia presentationsand .demonstrated the batic viability of both the curriculumand the multimedia approach. (Author) Final Report Contract Number OEC-9-71-0023(057) Mr. David C. Miller Adjunct Professor Ronald L. Hunt, Ed. D. Professor California State University,San Jose 125 South Seventh Street San Jose, California 95114 A GRADUATE-LEVEL SURVEY OFFUTURES STUDIES: A CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT August 31, 1972 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Office of Education National Center*for EducationalResearch and Development (Regional Development Program) OfNEAtIN, ABE OSPASIMEN18, WELf 0 SEOCAION SEPSO OfE0OCAltONSEEN Of f tCE NAS VSOM NS SECEPAO°MG 0000MEN1 0,0S OR1N SONY.ACW.1OSGiNCLP:NNV1Esti OS OUCE0 OS Of NECESSAME1 1F4E 0?CANISNO1 Of EDO 1NAltN 00 Of ftCE SI AlE0Of fteit.t. tONS ORPOIJCI SEPSESEN1POSMON COON FILMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY .1 r\I 1M %.0 r--I Final Report 4::, C:3 LLJ Contract Number OEC -9 -71 -0023(057) Mr. David C. Miller Adjunct Professor Ronald L. Hunt, Ed. D. Professor California State University, SanJose 125 South Seventh Street San Jose, California 95114 A GRADUATE-LEVEL SURVEY OF FUTURES STUDIES: A CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT August 31, 1972 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION,AND WELFARE Office of Education National Center for Educational Researchand Development (Regional Development Program) FINAL REPORT Contract Number OEC-9-71-0023 (057) A *GRADUATE-LEVEL SURVEY OF FUTURES STUDIES: A CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT Mr. David C. Miller Adjunct Professor Ronald L. Hunt, Ed. D. Professor California State University, San Jose 125 South Seventh Street San Jose, California 95114 August 31, 1972 The research reported hereinwas performed pur- suant to a contract with the Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education,and-Welfare. Contractors undertaking such projectsare encour- aged to express freely their professionaljudg- ments in the conduct of the project. Pointsof view or opinions stated do not, therefore,necessarily represent official Office ofEducation po- sition or policy. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Office of Education National Center for Educational Research and Development (Regional Development Program), AUTHORS' ABSTRACT An introductory graduate-studentlevel course curriculum for Futures Studieswas conceived, designed, and tested within the CyberneticSystems Program and the Instructional TechnologyDepartment,, School of Education, California StateUniversity, San Jose. The curriculum consists ofa series of 15 Learning Modules, including two devotedtoaa Standard Study Procedure and 13 treating the followingconcepts: The Time-Line, Appraising Futures Reports,Futures Studies Methods, Change, Alternative Futures,Forecastability, Confi- dence in Forecasts, AttitudesToward Futures, Causal- ity and Futures, Manageabilityof Futures, Values and Futures, Transcendental Change,and Stability.. An experimental offering ofthe course emphasized student development of multi-mediapresentations and demonstrated the basic viabilityof both the curriculumand the multi-media approach. 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Perhaps even more than most efforts-,Aa - ILcUrricu- lum development project in a new field is necessarily a collective, collaborative effort. While we ourselves must be held responsible' and accountable for the curriculum we have developed for futures studies instruction, we wish ta acknowledgment specifically a few of the many persons whose contributions to the effort we found especially helpful. Contrary to convention, first and foremost we wish to express our appreciation to our wives, Rita Moss Hunt and Virgin...a Finley Miller. Ms. Hunt provided an appropriate project name--ADVENT--and by her own exam- ple and serious work in another field reminded us con- stantly of the indispensAble value of intuition and arational perception in striving to foresee possible futures. Ms. Miller served nobly as insightful critic and proto-student in working through the many versions of concepts and learning materials outlines such a project necessarily entails; she also served as production coordinator for this final report. We wish also to thank our department chairmen at California State University, San Jose: Professor Norman 0. Gunderson, Chairman of the Cybernetic Systems Pro- gram and Dr. Harold Hailer, Chairman, Instructional Technology Department, School of Education. Their en- couragement and support in our "high-risk" academic venture has stood us in good stead, as has their ser- vice on the Project Advisory Working Group. Special thanks must also be given to the other members of the Advisory Working Group, as listed in Appendix D of this report. The AWG's counsel was especially valued in making the project design transi- tion described it Section III of this report. Within the:AWG, spaddial note is taken of assistance rendered as AWG Coordinator by Mr. Peter L. Shoup, President, Pacific House, California whose firm also provided space, clerical support, and information dissemina- tion assistance for the project. Another AWG member, Mr. C. Cameron McCauley, Director, Extension Media Center, University of California provided important assistance by cooperating in a related project to re- view and evaluate some 150 futures films for inclu- sion in our Learning Guide, Appendix B (Section 17) of this report. Uniquely valuable assistance was rendered by the twenty graduate students in the Cybernetic Systems Pro- gram at California State University, San Jose who sub- mitted themselves as "guinea pigs" and project collab- orators in the course of our experimental course offering in the Spring semester, 1972. We have recorded their names with gratitude in Appendix E to this report. Also in relation to the experimental course, we wish to thank Mr. Robert Theobald and the BobbsMerril Publishing Company of Indianapolis, Indiana for making available to us copies of the pre-publication edition of Mr. Theobald's useful new futures studies textbook, Futures Conditional which was used and evaluated for the first time in our experimental course. We must also acknowledge with'our deepest sincere thanks the information and recommendations provided us, by our futurist faculty colleagues in the United States and abroad. We wish to make special mention of Dr. Billy Rojas, Alice Lloyd College, Pippa Passes, Kentucky; and of Professor H. Wentworth Eldredge, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. Rojas' and Eldredge's pioneering efforts to track the evolution of futures studies intl. struction in U.S. colleges and universities greatly fa- cilitated our own work. Dr. Dennis Livingston, paceset- ting futures studies instructor formerly at Case-Western Reserve University, Cleveland, contributed substantially to our Learning Guide (see Appendix B, Section 16). Other trailblazing futurist faculty to whom we wrote or with whom we made other contact are gratefully acknowledged and listed in Appendix C to this report. Finally, we wish to express our intense appreciation to the. U.S. Office of Education Regional Re- search Program (Region IX, San Francisco, Dr. Walter Hirsch, Director) for the grant which has made thee present project possible. It is our hope that the in- vestment made will bear continuing fruit as other futurist faculty draw on what has been done here to sur- pass it in future futures studies instruction in Amer- ican higher education. PREFACE Introduction This report, like many documents beyond reasonable dispute that Futures Studies andResearch (hereafter, FSR) has arrived on the intellectualscene and is not apt soon to depart. Why? Futuristand soci- ologist Daniel Bell offered one of the firstand best explanatioTls to which the reader is commended:"The Study of the Future," The Public Interest,Number I, Fall 1965, pages 119-130. Just as the origins of any new intellectualde- parture can be traced to the societal climate in which the new departure appears, so it is reasonableto think that the subsequent development of thenew departure is shaped by and relevant to that same societal climate.In this prefatory essay, we offera general discussion of possible links between FSR and the societal climatein our era,

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