Teaching the future: learning strategies and student challenges

Purpose How do you teach the future when it hasn’t happened yet? This paper delves into the teaching and learning philosophies of futurist Dr Ian Yeoman of Victoria University of Wellington who emphasizes authenticity, problem based learning, visuals as creative tools and students negotiating problems.Design/methodology/approach This paper is a reflective account, the author as a human instrument.Findings The paper overviews three papers taught by the author, TOUR104 is a first year introductory course addressing how the drivers and trends in the macro environment influence tourism from a political, economic, social, technology and environment perspective. TOUR301 is a third year course as part of the Bachelor of Tourism Management degree. The course aims to help students develop the skills and knowledge necessary to understand and critically analyse tourism public policy, planning and processes within New Zealand and a wider context. TOUR413 is a scenario planning paper, applied in a tourism context and taught to students in postgraduate programs.Originality/value The paper examines different learning tools and strategies in order to deliver the philosophy with scaffolding and incremental learning featuring predominantly in this approach.