Creative Futures
Design Education Program
Museum collections and design thinking cycles enrich teacher practice through interaction and immersion with design professionals, educators, and leading teachers.
With a unique focus on the Australian Design & Technologies Curriculum, the Creative Futures program provides opportunities for teachers to develop or further develop their skills, knowledge and confidence regarding contemporary Design Thinking practice. Delivered on-site at Melbourne Museum in the Learning Lab Studio, teachers will be led through a series of talks and activities by industry experts, alongside opportunity for collaboration and resource sharing utilizing the Museum collection as well as the innovative Learning Lab Studio space.
Design Thinking is an iterative process which seeks to understand the user, challenge assumptions and redefine problems to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with an initial level of understanding. Focused on providing solution-based approaches to solving problems, it is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods.
In the 2023 Winter Holidays Museums Victoria will present the Creative Futures Annual Design Education Camp which will be offered free to teachers.
In late December 2020, Museums Victoria received a gift of $1 million from Creative Futures Ltd, for a perpetual trust focused on design education professional learning programs and related opportunities. This gift recognises the Museum’s longstanding commitment to design education within the Secondary Education sector and will support programs and initiatives for secondary school teachers.
Design education partners
Top Designs
For over 20 years Museums Victoria has partnered with the Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) to present Top Designs at Melbourne Museum. Part of the VCE Season of Excellence, the exhibition displays some of the brightest VCE and VCE VET students from across Victoria. With over 1000 submissions, the final selection of works offers a glimpse into the future of Australian design and presents work created by students who completed:
VCE
- Media
- Product Design and Technology
- Systems Engineering
- Theatre Studies
- Visual Communication Design
VCE VET
- Creative and Digital Media
- Engineering Studies
- Furnishing
- Integrated Technologies
- Music (Sound Production)
Held every year between March to July, the exhibition attracts over 10,000 education group bookings to the exhibition – with public engagement estimated to be three to four times this figure. The exhibition is complimented by the Top Designs Forums program. Over 30 Creative Industry experts present as panel members as part of the forums as best practice representatives within their field of design. In 2019 over 5,600 students and teachers attended these forums. On average a third of Top Design education participation is from regional and rural schools.
As part of Creative Futures initiative Museums Victoria will collaborate with the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) and Design and Technology Teachers Association (DATTA) Victoria to avoid duplication of professional development activities within the sector.
About Creative Futures Ltd
Creative Futures Ltd was established with the following principal objectives and purposes:
- to support the advancement of design education and culture;
- to promote the integration of design and innovation within and for the benefit of the broader community;
- to foster a supportive environment and culture for future creative thinkers. Creative Future’s four core values are Enterprise, Innovation, Creative Education and Support.
As part of its mission, Creative Futures decided to focus its support on design education institutions and organisations. It distributed major gifts in December 2020 to:
- Museums Victoria to develop programs and exhibitions for design students and teachers;
- University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design to develop award programs for design teachers in conjunction with the Melbourne Graduate School of Education; and
- Geelong Art Gallery to develop design support programs and exhibitions for students in the Bellarine and Surf Coast region.
- CFL also provided Teacher Development Grants to the Design and Technology Teachers Association (DATTA) Victoria.
Robert Treseder, Founder and Chair, Creative Futures Foundation is a passionate entrepreneurial leader with the Australian creative industries having established the Australian Centre for Design and Innovation (ACID), Geelong and the Academy of Design Australia (Melbourne).
About DATTA VIC
In March 2021, DATTA VIC was supported by Creative Futures to develop an online version of their Teaching Design Masterclass, which we had been running since 2019 with Peter Murphy as co-creator and presenter. The main aim was to provide a short-term solution to the critical shortage of qualified Design & Technologies (D&T) teachers. Research carried out in 2019 revealed that 90% of their member schools are forced to use out-of-field teachers from other learning areas to deliver the D&T curriculum, which is having a major impact on the way the subject is taught. Until there are more opportunities established in Initial Teacher Education, the Masterclass supports these teachers to deliver the curriculum in a progressive, dynamic, and safe way – and the online version lets them provide help to schools in rural areas, as the recruitment challenge is even greater for them.
DATTA VIC is the professional association for teachers of Design and Technologies in Victoria. Our members come from the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary sectors, and teach STEAM, Product Design, Textiles Design, Electronics, Systems Engineering, Food & Fibre, Sustainability and Emerging Technologies. DATTA VIC delivers a teacher professional learning program throughout the year, including conferences, workshops, regional networking groups and webinars. DATTA Vic also advocates on behalf of our learning area to state and federal government and industry and develops partnerships which benefit teachers and students.
Creative Futures Toolkit
As part of the Creative Futures Conference in 2022, DATTA VIC created a classroom toolkit for a program named Community Connections. This project is designed to engage students - individually or collaboratively - in exploring their own community connections through designing and creating a digital product that can be shared with others. This resource offers a specific opportunity to explore Indigenous culture and gives guidance on how to engage with First Nations’ design through the recently published Australian Indigenous Design Charter.