“On my return, I look forward to sharing this knowledge with my students,” said Rijken, who majored in IT and a minor in science at the Queensland University of Technology.

His dedication to education extends beyond the classroom and last year, he led students from his Cooktown State School Robotics Club to the RoboGames 2017 in San Francisco where they came fourth.

“I would have preferred to have been on the podium, but this was still an amazing result considering you’re up against the world,” he said.

Rijken will spend eight weeks at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, where, in addition to learning more about education design, and bringing that knowledge back to his own classroom in Cooktown, he hopes to run design workshops for other schools in Far North Queensland, including Bloomfield River, Rossville, Laura and Lakeland state schools.

“Having spent the past 11 years working in regional Queensland, I’m passionate about teaching children in remote communities about digital technologies.

“It’s important that we provide children living in remote areas with the same opportunities as students from more metropolitan parts of Queensland. I believe that no one should be disadvantaged solely based on where they are born or where a family chooses to live.”

Rijken said design thinking provides an alternative model to traditional ways of learning by challenging students to find multiple solutions to complex problems.

“It teaches the skills of inquiry, ideation and implementation – all key components of the scientific method. It also incorporates group work, with students driving their own learning and investigation as they attempt to develop a solution to a specific problem.”

In recognition of his work teaching children ICT, robotics and design, Rijken was named Far North Queensland Teacher of the Year in 2017 by Education Queensland, and he was the State Library of Queensland’s Design Minds regional ambassador for 2015-16.