New projects, new reasons to get involved
Recruit high schoolers to join our new 'design the future' competition
Support our advocates: Joe Sears and Chris Bishop
Learn how to Teach the Future in Amsterdam
Enter to win an IMPACT game to train your class in futures thinking
Help fund our Futures Thinking Playbook
Spread the word about the Summer of Futures
Try the teaching materials in our upgraded library
Hear how our road-tested library materials are inspiring teachers
See our team growing stronger.
High School Design Competition
Please help us spread the word to U.S.-based high school students to enjoy fun and prizes in our “Imagine Future Ed” online design competition, running now until March 27. By sharing this news and encouraging participation, kids age 13 to 18 will develop valuable skills while completing one or more of the activities.
Our co-sponsor, KnowledgeWorks, is a foundation that partners with school districts to drive the growth of personalized learning and provide national thought leadership around the future of learning. They support Teach The Future frequently in reaching students and teachers in the classroom. Please show them some appreciation on Facebook. Learn more and sign up here.
Follow our Advocates
At the National Council of Social Science conference, Joe Sears (pictured left at Emery Weiner High School in Houston) stepped up with a presentation based on his TTF Library contribution: “The Next Chapter in World History.” Follow him at @TheTweetofSears. Shout out to David Staley for getting us on the agenda at NCSS.
Chris Bishop (pictured right) blew open the minds of students and teachers at the Texas STEAM Summit in January. Specializing in ‘jobs of the future,’ Chris helps kids imagine jobs that don’t yet exist. That made him the ideal headliner for this event. Chris has had seven different careers in his life (so far, at least!). Keep up with his emerging career at @ChrisBishop.
Amsterdam Teachers' Workshop
If you want to teach a growth mindset, futures thinking is something you can use--in any class (history, social sciences, or languages), addressing all sorts of topics (sustainability, technology, career development) at all educational levels. Teach the Future is organizing a two-day course for innovative teachers. Experts will explain how to integrate futures thinking in your class materials and give you tools and techniques. When: Friday March 24th and April 7th 2017 (09:30 – 17:00) Where: The Netherlands (in Dutch) Cost: 450 euro per day Register on EventBrite More info: Erica Bol, erica@teachthefuture.org, +31 6 44 58 48 43
IMPACT games for classrooms
Thanks to Idea Couture’s successful Kickstarter campaign, Teach the Future will be receiving 25 copies of the IMPACT board game to distribute to educators who want to stimulate their students to think about the future of work. If you are interested in applying for a copy, read about eligibility and sign up at our web site: https://www.teachthefuture.org/impact
We need a Playbook for Futures Thinking
Our educators have requested a resource that can boost them and their students through the challenge of thinking about futures, a fun and engaging tool to support young people’s creative and critical thinking. Inspired by the WagiLabs Playbook, we contacted creator Chic Thompson, and the first lesson we have learned from him is that we cannot develop such a learning platform alone.
Although we know how to teach, we will also need experts in other disciplines if we hope to make our playbook a compelling inspiration to study foresight. We have recruited Sandy Damashek, who worked at The Children's Television Workshop (Sesame Street), Julia Rose West, who co-authored What the Foresight, and Sarah Rebar, an illustrator who will make our ideas latch into the imagination.
Help us make this leap into the next level of education innovation by funding this project at Start Some Good. You can become a classroom sponsor or an advocate with a cool lapel pin.
The Summer of Futures
To help teenagers think more effectively about the future when making decisions, Teach The Future has launched the Summer of Futures for high-school students. This program has three phases:
Starting now, administrators can schedule a 6-hour course for teachers of GT (Gifted and Talented) students. All participants learn how to integrate a lesson on ‘futures thinking’ into their classes, whatever the subject.
After completing the 6-hour course, teachers may sign up for a 2-day workshop which prepares them to conduct a 5-day student workshop. Teachers will be paid for their time, certified for “Futures Thinking” instruction, and eligible to work in the Summer of Futures program.
During the summer, high-school students will gather in our 5-day workshops to learn how to think about different ways the future could unfold as well as their possible roles. Students will be able to select topics and issues which they see as important to their future.
Want to participate? Know someone who should? We have brochures and flyers and entry forms. Just contact Peter Bishop, peter@teachthefuture.org.
Try some of the fast-loading, road-tested teaching materials in our library
The Teach the Future Library is now faster and easier to use with selections on the navigation bar that automatically filters items with one click. Jump on and see how easy it is to find and download your favorite lessons. Our recent survey of subscribers turned up many happy experiences:
"Keep this resource alive. Having a source to go to that gives you foundational material is extremely helpful."
"Every time I go to the resource page, I find something that I want to try."
"Thanks for sharing such great materials for free. If you add to or enhance them in the future, please let me know."
Visit and see for yourself: http://library.teachthefuture.org/
Our Library Materials Inspire Teachers
Last month, we sent out a survey to everyone who has downloaded materials from Teach the Future's library. We wanted to understand what worked for these earliest adopters and what we can do better in the future. The respondents were split about 50/50 between higher education and K-12, and about two-thirds of them were teachers or instructors.
What did we learn from them? Let's start with the good news:
About two-thirds of respondents said they were "extremely" or "very" satisfied with the material they downloaded. No one said they were unsatisfied.
Ninety percent of respondents said they were likely to use the material again or teach other lessons about the future.
Those data points are uplifting, but they only represent those respondents who had used the materials they downloaded. About half of respondents had downloaded but not yet used the material with their students. We also learned that nearly half of those who had used the materials said they modified them "moderately" or "significantly." Learn more.
Katie King and Lue Bishop on our team
The Teach the Future Board is happy to announce that they have appointed Katie King as the new Deputy Director of Teach the Future. Katie has been with Teach the Future from the beginning. She graduated Magna cum Laude from the USC Annenberg School of Communication, spent three years as project manager in a large non-profit in California, two years teaching middle school language arts in Houston with Teach for America, and another three years teaching in California.
Dr. Lue Bishop comes to Teach the Future with more than 40 years teaching and administrative experience in public and private schools. She earned her Master of Science in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston-Clear Lake in 1982 and her Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Houston in 1994. She will be responsible for teacher training and development on futures thinking beginning with the GT 6-hour update and the Summer of Futures in 2017.