# Fiction as a method to imagine higher education futures **Author:** Stefan Hrastinski **Published:** 11 August 2024 (online; journal issue 2025) **Length:** 7 pages (reading time unavailable) ## In Summary Stefan Hrastinski proposes fiction as a method for exploring possible futures of Higher Education, rather than attempting to predict technological change. Drawing on examples of speculative stories written by students and academics, he describes education fiction as plural, speculative and informed by existing knowledge and experience. Such narratives can examine the implications of AI, commercialisation and changing educational practices while making research more accessible. Hrastinski argues that imagining undesirable and hopeful futures can help educators participate in shaping decisions made today. **Source:** [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2024.2385353](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2024.2385353) ## What might this mean for us? Could Electric Dreams use speculative fiction alongside historical objects to explore how technological change might reshape creative education? Rather than forecasting AI's effects, students and staff could develop contrasting narratives of possible futures. How might these stories make assumptions visible, encourage collective dialogue and help teaching teams identify the educational futures they wish to pursue or resist? ## Links in this reading - [Near Future Teaching: Practice, Policy and Digital Education Futures](https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103211026446) - [Higher Education Futures: Eight Scenarios, Eight Tarot Cards and Eight Short Stories](https://www.de.ed.ac.uk/index.php/news/higher-education-futures-8-scenarios-8-tarot-cards-and-8-short-stories) - [Exploring the Impact of AI and Robots on Higher Education through Design Fictions](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00237-8) - [Criteria of Quality in Fiction-Based Research](https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2022.2087603) - [Future-Orientated Approaches to Curriculum Development: Fictive Scripting](https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2016.1170765) - [Speculative Social Science Fiction of Digitalisation in Higher Education](https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00260-6)