A workshop on Design Thinking and the Future of Education for mixed groups of academic and professional staff. Teams investigate a future learning tension, examine evidence, generate ideas, prototype an experience and plan responsible implementation.
Both workshops follow the five stages. The longer session gives you more time for interviews, evidence, testing, revision and a practical pilot plan. Each team works on one challenge throughout.
What is included in each workshop
Activity
90-minute sprint
180-minute workshop
Challenge selection
Choose one of 6 scenarios.
Choose one of 12 scenarios.
Introduction
10 minutes · Frame the challenge and select a learner.
15 minutes · Frame the challenge, select a learner and identify evidence needed.
Engage
10 minutes · Use a learner card and a real experience to identify needs.
20 minutes · Conduct a paired interview and refine the learner’s needs.
Evaluate
10 minutes · Identify relevant signals, evidence and assumptions.
20 minutes · Examine two sources and local evidence; challenge assumptions and record uncertainties.
Explore
15 minutes · Generate ideas and identify three promising concepts.
30 minutes · Develop three distinct alternatives, compare them and justify your selection.
Break
No scheduled break.
10 minutes after Explore, with a break timer.
Expand
15 minutes · Create a simple prototype and invite a quick response.
30 minutes · Test with another team, capture feedback and revise the prototype.
Execute
15 minutes · Identify a first implementation step, risks and success measures.
30 minutes · Develop a pilot plan with an owner, safeguards, support, success measures and a review date.
Showcase
10 minutes · Prepare a short showcase and exchange paired pitches and feedback.
20 minutes · Present the concept and receive structured feedback: a benefit, a concern and a next test.
Reflection
5 minutes · Write a future headline and agree a next action.
5 minutes · Write a future headline and agree a next action.
Your takeaway
An initial concept, a simple prototype and a first implementation step.
A tested and revised concept with a practical implementation plan.
Downloads
Formatted Word and PDF records of your responses.
Formatted Word and PDF records, including the additional activities and structured feedback.
Total time
90 minutes
180 minutes, including the break
Welcome
Today’s challenge is not to predict the future. It is to imagine possibilities, explore opportunities and design educational experiences that could help learners thrive in a changing world.
You will work through the five stages of the 5E Design Thinking Framework and develop a future-focused educational concept. The goal is learning, collaboration, experimentation and insight.
Open the workshop · 15 minutes
Allow three minutes to identify a concrete moment of friction; park wider trend debates, explain the challenge and invite teams to choose one of the twelve scenarios and one fictional learner card. Frame scenarios as starting points for inquiry, then ask teams to identify the evidence they will need.
Suggested materials: paper, pens, sticky notes, a shared workspace and access to relevant institutional or public evidence. Agree on a time horizon and work in small groups that mix academic and professional perspectives.
01
20 minutes
Engage: Understand the Future Learner
Begin with people and their experiences. Interview a colleague or draw on a real learner experience; distinguish what you know from what you imagine.
Facilitator emphasis
Take turns interviewing a colleague about a real learning experience. Capture a concrete difficulty, then use it to refine your fictional learner’s needs. Separate observations from assumptions.
Encourage specific observations. Ask participants to distinguish what they know from what they infer.
02
20 minutes
Evaluate: Explore Signals and Evidence
Examine the evidence behind your chosen tension. Record sources, distinguish trends from assumptions and make uncertainty visible.
Facilitator emphasis
Inspect two relevant sources and one piece of local evidence. Record their dates and limitations. Identify an assumption the evidence challenges and an uncertainty you still need to investigate.
Ask teams to name their sources and distinguish evidence, assumptions and uncertainty before selecting an opportunity.
03
30 minutes
Explore: Generate Possibilities
Generate as many ideas as possible. Avoid criticism, build on each other’s thinking and push beyond traditional assumptions. Begin with “How might we…”.
Facilitator emphasis
Develop three distinct responses to your challenge. Compare their learner value, inclusion and feasibility, then choose one to prototype. Explain why you selected it.
Protect divergence. Invite difference before teams compare feasibility or select a direction.
04
30 minutes
Expand: Develop a Future Concept
Choose one promising concept. Sketch or role-play the learner experience and invite a quick response from another team.
Facilitator emphasis
Build a sketch, storyboard or role-play. Ask another team to attempt a learner task. Observe where they struggle, record their feedback and revise at least one feature. If working alone, arrange a later test and mark the concept as untested.
Make the learning question explicit. Invite another group to experience the prototype and capture their feedback before moving to implementation.
05
30 minutes
Execute: Responsible Implementation Canvas
Use the six areas below to develop an implementation roadmap. Name a first pilot, an owner and a review date.
Facilitator emphasis
Define a small pilot, its owner and the support required. Name an ethical or inclusion safeguard, a measure of success, a review date and a condition that would make you pause the pilot.
Ask teams to identify a first implementation step, an owner, the support required, ethical and inclusion risks, and a measure of success.
Showcase · 20 minutes / Reflection · 5 minutes
Share the future you would test.
Create your showcase poster in 5 minutes, then use 15 minutes for presentations and structured feedback: one learner benefit, one concern and one next test. Finish with 5 minutes for a headline from ten years in the future and reflection.
Present your learner, evidence, prototype and first responsible pilot.
What surprised you?
What tensions seem most significant?
What opportunities excite you most?
What should universities start doing today to prepare for tomorrow?
What role should design thinking play in shaping the future of education?
Ready-to-use facilitation assets
Start with a person. Design a possible future.
Choose one scenario and one fictional learner. Spend three minutes identifying a concrete moment of friction, then begin the five stages. Scenarios are provocations, not forecasts; personas are starting points to challenge through real conversations.
Pick one card. Ask the three questions, then describe one difficult moment for your chosen learner. Avoid debating whether the whole scenario will come true.
Featured challenge 01 · Possible future
AI Everywhere
Imagine education ten years from today. Every student has access to a highly capable AI learning companion that provides tutoring, feedback, content generation, coaching and personalised support. Many educational tasks can now be completed with AI assistance.
What becomes more valuable?
What becomes less important?
When should a human step in?
How might we design learning experiences that help students develop critical thinking, creativity and judgement in a world where AI is always available?
Featured challenge 02 · Possible future
Assessment Reimagined
Imagine a future where traditional examinations no longer provide confidence that learning has occurred. Universities must develop new approaches to assessing knowledge, capability and human potential.
What should a learner demonstrate?
How could feedback become part of assessment?
What evidence respects privacy?
How might we create meaningful forms of assessment that remain valuable in an AI-enabled world?
Featured challenge 03 · Possible future
Lifelong Learning
Imagine a future where people expect to learn continuously throughout their careers and many workers retrain or reskill every five years.
What can happen in twenty minutes?
How can prior experience count?
Who pays for time to learn?
How might we make lifelong learning engaging, accessible and sustainable?
Featured challenge 04 · Possible future
The Flexible University
Students learn through universities, employers, industry providers, online platforms and professional communities. Traditional educational boundaries become increasingly blurred.
Who defines a worthwhile outcome?
How is local knowledge recognised?
Who supports a learner when a partnership ends?
How might universities remain relevant and valuable within a distributed learning ecosystem?
Featured challenge 05 · Possible future
Learner Wellbeing
Students face increasing uncertainty, information overload and competing personal, professional and academic commitments.
What would make a learner return?
Where does belonging happen?
What could a team test next week?
How might education better support wellbeing, belonging and learner success?
Featured challenge 06 · Possible future
Inclusive Futures
Student populations become increasingly diverse in culture, age, ability, background and learning preference.
Who is missing from the room?
What works with low bandwidth?
How can learners choose how to participate?
How might educational experiences become more inclusive, equitable and accessible?
Extended deck 07 · Possible future
The Overwhelmed Educator
Imagine education ten years from today. Automation has reduced routine tasks but created new demands for checking outputs and supporting learners.
What should stop?
What must remain a human responsibility?
How will workload actually improve?
How might we protect time for the human work of teaching?
Extended deck 08 · Possible future
The Degree Unbundled
Imagine education ten years from today. Learners assemble portfolios of short credentials from multiple providers instead of one three-year qualification.
What role does a university play?
How do learners demonstrate capability?
How is quality maintained?
How might we make a fragmented learning journey coherent and trusted?
Extended deck 09 · Possible future
The Global Classroom
Imagine education ten years from today. Students work with international experts and peers across time zones, languages and local contexts.
What opportunities emerge?
What barriers remain?
Whose knowledge shapes the curriculum?
How might we build belonging across a classroom without borders?
Extended deck 10 · Possible future
Human Skills First
Imagine education ten years from today. AI handles many technical and administrative tasks, while teams struggle with judgement, collaboration and difficult conversations.
Which capabilities become more important?
What experience helps people practise them?
How would learners show growth?
How might we teach and recognise the human capabilities that matter?
Extended deck 11 · Possible future
The Climate-Ready Campus
Imagine education ten years from today. Extreme weather interrupts campus access and the institution must reduce the environmental impact of learning.
What needs a physical place?
What is the footprint of the digital alternative?
Who is affected when a campus closes?
How might we maintain connection and learning with fewer resources?
Extended deck 12 · Possible future
The Data Mirror
Imagine education ten years from today. A learner dashboard predicts disengagement, but a student says its picture of them is wrong.
Who can challenge a prediction?
What data is genuinely necessary?
What support is offered without a label?
How might we use learning data while protecting agency and trust?