Using this chart, we now have four potential futures to explore with many shades between them. Quadrant A represents a potential future where education is standardized and has diversified the sources and suppliers of learning; quadrant D represents a potential future where learning is highly personalized, but the sources and suppliers of learning are not as diverse; and so on.
After graphing the polarities, compare the potential futures and have the group pick those it most prefers from each chart by discussing the following questions: Where are we currently? What would each potential future look like? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each? Where do we want to be? Figure 1.3 (page 15) represents the questions and challenges associated with the potential future that each quadrant of figure 1.2 suggests.
In a typical group workshop, mix four to twelve sets of polarities to create two to six four-quadrant charts. The ensuing discussion then results in the articulation of preferred futures from all the potential ones.
Table 1.1: Polarities and Sample Questions
| Polarities | Sample Questions |
| Local versus global | Will learning focus on local or national contexts or adopt a global perspective? |
| Public sector versus corporate sector | Is the public school model going to remain the same, or will the private sector become more involved and influential? |
| Career readiness versus college readiness | Should students be prepared for work or for institutions of higher education? |
| Career oriented versus citizenship oriented | Is learning geared toward college and career orientation or toward citizenship and satisfying, productive lives? |
| Specialized versus generalized | Should students gain deep knowledge in a few specialized areas or learn across a broader spectrum? |
| Short-term accountability versus long-term goals | Should we focus on short-term accountability measures or on long-term goals that may be more difficult to assess? |
| Disciplinary knowledge versus transdisciplinary skills | Do we educate for acquisition of knowledge and skills within traditional disciplines, or do we develop transdisciplinary 21st century skills? |
| Employees versus employers | Do we want to develop students destined to be employees or employers? |
| Individual versus collaborative | Is success, in our context, an individual or collaborative endeavor? |
| Face to face versus distance | In the future, will students learn through face-to-face interactions or through online or distance-learning opportunities? |
| Diploma versus accumulated evidence of proficiency | Will student learning be authenticated through common graduation requirements (such as Carnegie Units) or through more personalized evidence of performance and accomplishment (such as digital portfolios and badges)? |
| Stability versus innovation | Are we a district, school, or department that values stability and structure, or do we value innovation and risk? |
| Connected versus independent | Are we a district, school, or department that sees itself as part of a connected network or as an independent entity? |
Figure 1.2: Magic square chart.
Figure 1.3: Questions and challenges by quadrant
Once the group graphs and discusses various potential futures, you can consolidate and summarize the work as follows.
• Collect and collate the descriptions of all the different future points the quadrants describe. Together, they form a rich description of preferred futures from varied perspectives.
• Schedule time for the group to reflect on its work and package it for communication to others. Generally, it is best to transfer the completed charts into a digital format, such as a simple set of PowerPoint slides, and collate the descriptions of preferred futures to bring them together in a single document.
When you synthesize the descriptions of multiple preferred futures (each in the context of different mixtures of polarities), the result is a powerful vision for the future your community desires.
Next Steps
Once you have tasked the research and inquiry appropriately across representative groups, you must consolidate their resulting insights and deductions. You can accomplish this work of summarizing and agreeing on the core, essential elements of the research in two ways. One option is to set up an online system (such as a website where groups can post their results) that offers an efficient alternative to trying to coordinate schedules to bring groups together physically. Even a simple Google Doc (https://google.com/docs/about) can suffice for this purpose. Alternately, you can use facilitated workshops to structure each group’s dialogue and discussion to arrive at its members’ shared understandings about the future.
Regardless of the format, generative dialogue and community exploration can be an important part of opening your thinking to new possibilities and opportunities for an educational future. Community engagement in this collaborative inquiry will yield shared understandings and commitments that will be necessary to support and sustain the effort, especially during the challenges of planning and implementing the processes that will follow.
Consolidating a Community-Based and Informed View of the Future
Once the important work of engaging in a community-based, future-focused inquiry is complete, you must further consolidate the responses into shared and concise understandings about the future and the implications for learning and education. You will have created the raw material for this consolidation from some of the previous knowledge-building and generative tasks, such as working with the magic squares described in the previous section. It is best to do this as a two- to three-hour workshop so that your core leadership group can consider all the learning and insights from the subgroups. Figure 1.4 offers a protocol for facilitating a consolidation workshop.
Figure