This two-session half-day workshop series invites higher education instructors to explore inclusive pedagogy through the lens of futures literacy, a UNESCO-recognized methodology for developing the capacity to think imaginatively and critically about the future. Rather than treating inclusion as a checklist, participants engage with it as a design orientation: who is being centered, who is being imagined, and who remains invisible in a given learning experience?
Participants move through three phases. The workshop opens with a somatic grounding practice that settles the nervous system and opens imaginative space. This models how purposeful presence as a pedagogical tool can transform the quality of a learning room. From this grounded starting point,
participants learn about five playful archetypes drawn from futures literacy methodology: lenses for identifying whose perspectives, needs, and futures are centered or excluded in a course design. Finally, in a hands-on redesign “sandbox session”, participants apply these lenses to a real element of their own teaching practice.
Between sessions, participants try one of the practices from Session 1 in their own context and bring their reflections back to the group. Participants leave with a personal grounding practice, a transferable analytical framework, and the beginnings of a small community of educators committed to futures-forward, inclusive pedagogy. The workshop is open to instructors from all disciplines; no prior experience with futures literacy is required.
Learning GoalsBy the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Explain the core principles of futures literacy and articulate its relevance to inclusive course and curriculum design.
- Apply five futures literacy archetypes as analytical lenses to identify whose perspectives are centered or excluded in a given learning design.
- Facilitate a brief somatic grounding practice and describe how embodied presence can function as a pedagogical tool in higher education settings.
- Redesign at least one element of their own teaching (a discussion prompt, assessment design, or course framing using the futures literacy lenses explored in the workshop).
- Articulate a concrete next step for integrating inclusive futures-oriented thinking into their ongoing teaching practice.
Self-Study Units (revised)
The workshop is designed as a two-part series (2 × half-day) to give participants the opportunity to try out what they've learned in their own teaching practice before coming back together for group reflection.
Before the first workshop session (approx. 1 AE / ~30 minutes):
Read a short introductory text on Futures Literacy (~5–10 min.)
- Reflect on a moment when you needed an accommodation that wasn't offered or wished a professor had done something
- differently. Come ready to share. (~10–15 min.)
- Note down one teaching design decision from your own context that you'd like to bring into the workshop for analysis. (~5 min.)
Deliverable: personal teaching case sketch + one memory to share.
Between the two workshop sessions (approx. 1–2 AE / 60–90 minutes):
- Try one of the practices from Session 1 on your own (10–15 min.)
- Reflect: what did you notice? What shifted (in your body, your thinking, your sense of the room you want to create)? (~20–30 min.)
- Capture your observations in a short written reflection (structured notes or bullet points).
Deliverable: reflection document as the foundation for Session 2.
Methods
Workshops in the DCAT teaching qualification program are learner-centered and action-oriented. They work with varying social forms, exercises, group work, reflection and feedback; participants are thus given the opportunity to directly deepen and actively practice what they have learned.
