Futures Thinking Toolkit
Research Thesis: Future Play Toolkit
Exploring a Futures Thinking Toolkit for Elementary Education
PRIMARY RESEARCH, Secondary Research, LITERATURE REVIEW DATA COLLECTION, RESEARCH RECRUITMENT, Research methodologies, QUALITATIVE RESEARCH, ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH, INTERVIEWS, DATA ANALYSIS, Futures Thinking Frameworks, Stakeholder Mapping, Systems Design Tools, Toolkit DESIGN
2023
PRIMARY RESEARCH | Secondary Research | LITERATURE REVIEW DATA COLLECTION | RESEARCH RECRUITMENT | Research methodologies | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH | EXPERT INTERVIEWS | DATA ANALYSIS | Futures Thinking Frameworks | Stakeholder Mapping | Systems Design Tools | Toolkit DESIGN
2023
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
PRIMARY RESEARCH | Secondary Research | LITERATURE REVIEW DATA COLLECTION | RESEARCH RECRUITMENT | Research methodologies | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH | INTERVIEWS | DATA ANALYSIS | Futures Thinking Frameworks | Stakeholder Mapping | Systems Design Tools | Toolkit DESIGN
2023
Services
YEAR
PUBLISHED
How might we integrate Futures Thinking into Ontario’s Public Elementary School System and prepare children to adapt to a rapidly changing world with multiple futures?
The rapidly changing needs and expectations of society are driving contextual, technological, and pedagogical shifts in education. This research project emphasizes the importance of equipping young learners in Ontario’s Public Education System with skills to adapt to an evolving world and to navigate uncertainty. It highlights the importance to prepare students for future challenges and emerging careers. By incorporating Futures Thinking into elementary education, students can develop an early understanding of continuous change and learn the skills needed to anticipate and shape that future.
The outcome of this research was a proposed hypothetical toolkit for educators, as a means of exploring Futures Thinking. The toolkit would assist educators in developing various activities and supply them with resources to teach and support the learning. Through this toolkit, learners would develop their own creative confidence, inspire others, take risks, have the agency to imagine, craft narratives and co-create their futures, through a facilitated approach.
CONTEXT
VUCA World (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) – The future is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Today’s preschoolers will face radically different realities by 2040.
Global disruptions – Rapid advancements in AI, automation, and globalization are transforming economies, societies, and work. Routine jobs are increasingly at risk.
Shift in valued competencies – The future belongs to creators, empathizers, and big-picture thinkers rather than only coders, lawyers, or MBAs.
Traditional education models – Current systems are rooted in colonial, industrial-age models emphasizing standardization and testing. Creativity and diverse learning needs remain undervalued.
Global interconnectedness – Economies, societies, and systems are deeply interdependent, requiring cooperation to tackle shared challenges.
Creativity & foresight deficit – Education often stifles creativity (Robinson, 2006) and fails to equip students to anticipate change.
How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century given that we can’t anticipate what the economy will look like at the end of next week?
Sir. K. Robinson
(Changing education paradigms, n.d)
WHY IT MATTERS?
Education must evolve to prepare students for jobs, technologies, and challenges that do not yet exist.
Students need future-ready skills like adaptability, foresight, and problem-solving to thrive in disrupted labor markets.
Education must move beyond outdated structures to prioritize inclusivity, equity, creativity, and learner-centered approaches.
21st-century competencies (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, resilience) are essential for innovation and societal contribution.
Education must cultivate global citizenship, responsibility, and sustainable mindsets to address collective risks and opportunities.
Embedding creativity and strategic foresight in learning can help learners adapt, innovate, and shape the future.
RESEARCH QUESTION
How might we integrate Futures Thinking into Ontario’s Public Elementary School System and prepare children to adapt to a rapidly changing world with multiple futures?
The focus of this research lies in the connection between advancing pedagogies and technologies and adapting to the changing needs of society.
Secondary Questions
What knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values will today’s students need to thrive and shape their world in 2035?
How do we ready children for a world where machines are replacing jobs?
Can teachers be empowered to be active participants to deliver Futures Thinking?
Literature Review
Validated the systems analysis and inspired future school visions by examining thought-leaders’ perspectives, case studies, future skills, alternative pedagogy, and practices across sectors. Insights from the Playful Schools Conference 2023 enriched the review, drawing on books, articles, policy documents, and diverse media sources.
Participant Interviews
Conducted one-hour virtual interviews with parents, educators, and foresight practitioners. Discussions explored system goals, gaps, and future skills, the role of Futures Thinking in elementary education, impacts of technology, and parents’ views on creativity and personalization. Insights informed a toolkit for educators to integrate Futures Thinking.
Horizon Scans & STEEP-V
Horizon scans provided insights into emerging trends, weak signals, and long-term shifts shaping education. This method explored key drivers and external factors—social, technological, economic, environmental, political, and value (STEEP-V) changes—that influenced trends and identified emerging issues as building blocks for the future, helping to anticipate disruptions and uncover opportunities for innovation.
Causal Layered Analysis (CLA)
CLA was a futures theory and method that used an integrated, layered approach to categorize diverse views and concerns about the future, enabling more effective foresight. In this study, CLA was an integral tool, helping to integrate stakeholder perspectives, support systematic change, and define new measures aligned with a shared vision for education.
Future Narratives
Through these dialogues, future narratives emerged, helping participants envision multiple plausible educational futures and identify pathways to achieve them. These narratives offered a shared lens to align values, goals, and innovative strategies for systemic change.
The Future We Want or The Future Skillset required in children is a shared responsibility between educators, parents, and actors within the education system.
DATA SYNTHESIS
This study proposes an inclusive approach to empower educators in teaching Futures Thinking to children. A toolkit was developed to provide hands-on, practical activities that introduce Futures Thinking at the elementary level.
Key themes from interviews guided the toolkit’s design, focusing on:
-
Exploring Futures Thinking in elementary classrooms.
-
Addressing concerns with current education ideologies.
-
Effective ways to deploy Futures Thinking in teaching.
-
Parents’ perspectives on preparing children for a rapidly changing world.
-
Integrating essential knowledge and skills to meet future societal needs.
-
Encouraging innovation and adaptability in teaching and learning.
-
Promoting accessible and simple methods for spreading futures literacy.
The Changing Landscape
The Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), a key input for the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, gathers insights from over 1,200 experts on evolving global risks. For Canada, top risks include cost-of-living crises, debt, inflation, climate-change adaptation failure, environmental and employment crises, and asset bubbles. A horizon scan of journals, news, blogs, social media, and books identified signals on how technology, societal shifts, and global trends may impact education. Using the STEEP-V framework (Societal, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political, Values), this study explores opportunities for education to address disconnections between learners and educators, foster social innovation, and integrate advanced technologies, balancing resilience with responsiveness in a post-pandemic world.
AI and Algorithmic Determinism (Values)
Reliance on big data and generative AI in education offers personalization but risks bias; inclusive design is essential.
.jpg)
Mental Health and Wellbeing (Values)
Post-pandemic, schools face rising mental health needs; programs supporting self-esteem and wellbeing are increasingly critical.
.jpg)
Gamification & AR/VR (Technological)
Game-based learning boosts engagement, personalization, and soft-skills development, gaining traction since the pandemic.
Agents of Social Change (Values)
Higher education integrates design and systems thinking to prepare students for social innovation and equitable futures.
Bilingual Education (Societal)
Supports cognitive development, higher test scores, and health benefits, reflecting Canada’s linguistic diversity.
Leveraging Networks (Societal)
Out-of-school and network-based learning broaden equitable access and strengthen shared vision and collaboration.
THE CAUSAL LAYERED
ANALYSIS (CLA)
CLA is a futures method that uses an integrated, layered approach to organize diverse views and concerns about the future. Rather than predicting a specific outcome, it opens space to explore constitutive discourses and imagine alternative futures (Inayatullah, 2017). CLA simplifies complex problems across four layers: litany (visible, short-term issues), systemic causes (social, technological, economic, environmental, political factors), worldview (underlying perspectives), and myth/metaphor (deep narratives shaping beliefs) (Inayatullah, 2019).
Tensions in Traditional System v/s Emerging Opportunities for 2033
Interview participants and literature reviews highlighted major changes in education driven by evolving societal needs. These include contextual shifts (social, economic, and cultural influences), technological shifts (integration of digital tools and platforms), and pedagogical shifts (moving from lecture-based to interactive, collaborative, and experiential learning).
The findings emphasize the need for education to be more responsive and for stakeholders to have practical tools to navigate these changes. It presented key viewpoints from participants alongside insights from OECD (2019) and Jones (2012), while underscoring the shift from a static, linear model to a dynamic, non-linear approach to learning.
The education system is fragmented. Some areas are innovative, but the majority lack the capacity to change quickly. In 20 years, it would be nice to think we’d be thinking differently.
- Interview Participant, Educator and Futures Thinker
Bringing future work into the elementary school is you have to start to get these kids to imagine themselves looking different in the future, so what’s left with a learner is a legacy of questioning, of challenging, of advocating.
- Interview Participant, Educator and Futures Thinker
WHY FUTURES THINKING?
By integrating Futures Thinking and design practices into learning experiences for students can help build a futures mindset. This will allow us to envision a broader range of potential futures, while design enables us to work towards preferred futures by testing and refining ideas through iteration and feedback. By adopting a more human-centered and empathetic approach, educators can co-design experiences that foster intentional practice and provide a space for students to develop these skills, enabling them to make a meaningful contribution towards a more equitable, and humane future.
Through a Futures Thinking mindset, we must enable students to become navigators of their shifting contexts, learn to embrace ambiguity through co-creation, network building, and rapid experiments and be able to lead with purpose.
TOOLKIT DESIGN
How do we get these kids to imagine themselves looking different in the future?
Future Play is a comprehensive resource, a toolkit designed to support educators who are new to Futures Thinking. Its primary aim is to introduce the fundamental concepts of Futures Thinking and explore the critical design questions of What, Why, How, When, And Where. To achieve this, the toolkit is organized into four key sections, each focused on a specific aspect of Futures Thinking: gathering intelligence about the future, exploring the dynamics of change, describing what the future might be like, and co- creating an artifact to solve a problem.
FUTURE PLAY TOOLKIT
The toolkit is designed around a simplified design thinking process with four main blocks: DEFINE > IDEATE > EXPLORE > CO-CREATE. It is modular, adaptable, and can be used independently or integrated into lesson plans across subjects such as language arts, science, or social studies.
Aim
The toolkit encourages students to recognize their individual and community roles in shaping the future. For educators, it serves as a conversation starter to promote Futures Thinking.
Skills
Activities foster meta-cognitive skills, including critical thinking, systemic understanding, empathy, creativity, flexibility, collaboration, and communication.
Target
Designed for students aged 8–10 (Grades 3–4), focusing on cognitive and social skill development.
Outcome
There are no “right” answers—the focus is on facilitating conversations, generating insights, and shaping participants’ thinking to imagine their own futures.
FUTURE PLAY
Toolkit Design
The toolkit is developed into 4 blocks: DEFINE > IDEATE > EXPLORE > CO-CREATE
Each block is focused on a specific aspect of Futures Thinking: gathering intelligence about the future, exploring the dynamics of change, describing what the future might be like, and co- creating an artifact to solve a problem.
Understanding the future is not just about building a future vision for ideas or innovation, but it also builds a robust and calculative analysis of our present conditions and surroundings.
No one is better positioned to meet future thinking than today’s youth and young professionals, which will be in leading positions of the future.
- (“Reflecting on the Past and Present for Futures Thinking on Disaster Risk Reduction,” 2022)
Block 2
IDEATE
Students put Futures Thinking into practice by envisioning and sharing their own futures. Activities include:
-
Let’s Talk About the Future: Reflecting on long-term changes.
-
Let’s Talk About the Past: Considering how the past shapes the present and future.
This block emphasizes that the future is not predetermined and everyone plays a role in shaping it.
Block1
DEFINE
Introduces Futures Thinking and its principles in a simple, guided way. Educators gain foundational knowledge to feel Futures Literate. Activities include exploring change, multiple possibilities, past-present-future perspectives, and diverse voices shaping the future. Activities can be used independently or paired with lessons.
Block 3
EXPLORE
Focuses on “What Would Happen?” and uses storytelling to explore multiple possible futures. Students create scenarios and exercise their imagination to consider not only what is likely but also what could happen. Activities foster creativity and scenario-based thinking while preparing learners for uncertainty.
Block 4
CO-CREATE
Encourages students to build “Artifacts from the Future”, integrating imagination, collaboration, and storytelling. The process follows: Identify a Problem > Research Context > Create a Future Product > Share Ideas. This block can be used independently or alongside other blocks, bringing play and hands-on exploration into learning.
Bringing future work into elementary schools helps kids imagine themselves differently, leaving them with a legacy of questioning, challenging, and advocating.
- Interview Participant, Educator and Futures Thinker
This research highlighted the importance of cultivating a future-oriented mindset in children by embedding Futures Thinking into elementary education. Building futures literacy empowers imagination, resilience, and critical thinking, enabling children to navigate uncertainty and shape better worlds.
The Future Play Toolkit was developed as a modular, adaptable resource to introduce educators to the core principles and practices of foresight.
Looking ahead, the next step is to test and refine the toolkit with educators, gather expert input, and explore its application across diverse contexts, including India. Ultimately, Futures Thinking gives children the agency to imagine, question, and co-create their preferred futures—an essential skill in an uncertain and rapidly changing world.
Limitations of the Project
The research approach too was drawn from system actors’ lived experiences, with findings triangulated between literature and interviews. Limitations included a small sample, three-month timeframe for interviews, and a single graduate researcher with advisor support.
The Futures Play Toolkit was developed under time and resource constraints, limiting depth and educator input. It was not prototyped or tested, and activities remain hypothetical, adapted from existing frameworks. While intentionally low-fidelity to suit public education, it lacks enhancements like audio-visual tools and broader collaboration. Future research, prototyping, and funding are needed to strengthen its design, test its classroom application, and evaluate its impact on fostering futures mindsets in children.
The project listed is submitted to OCAD University, Canada in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation as a Major Research Project/Research Thesis.
DURATION - JUNE 2022 TO MAY 2023
ADVISOR - A. BAINS (OCAD UNIVERSITY)
Images - CANVA, Freepik, Unsplash, WIX
Icons ADAPTED FROM - the Noun Project, FREEPIK (ACADEMIC purposes only)