#862: Futures Thinking as a Pedagogical Tool: Designing Futures Thinking Professional Learning for Middle School Teachers

Young people today face profound social, technological, and environmental uncertainty, yet few classroom experiences explicitly help them to imagine and shape visions of the future. This study describes a professional learning workshop that introduced seventh-grade history teachers (n=11) to a futures thinking game. Post-workshop survey results showed significant gains in familiarity with futures thinking and strong agreement on its relevance for students. Qualitative responses highlighted potential for the game to foster student agency, imagination, and hope. These findings suggest that professional learning is a powerful pathway for bringing futures thinking into schools and preparing youth to navigate uncertainty with resilience and purpose.