Abstract
The university system is today in complete upheaval. The time has come to open up educational scenarios aimed at developing “acting for the unanticipated”. This notion of the unanticipable, little discussed in the literature, is presented in this article as being able to be defined in its complementarity with the anticipated. It opens educational practice to the production of “butterfly effects” aimed at deploying a multiplicity of consequences of learning actions in time and space. After having circumscribed “unanticipate” from the study of the contents of the definitions of its 14 synonyms, we approach it as a possible “act” supported by other verbs linked to a cognitive process and a dimension of knowledge. These verbs can be used in the formulation of instructions integrated into a learning activity. Provided by the teacher, these instructions open up the potential to “act for the unanticipated”.