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Remon Rooij

A+BE Faculty | IDEE Community 

Amongst our colleagues is a strong tendency to equate teaching with instructing. However, we might forget that learning requires much more than instruction. In my experience, most learning at our university begins with a student who is intrinsically motivated to learn and wants to explore. It is for such a person that as a teacher you try to design a rich learning environment, offering many different opportunities for learning. It is important to realize that in that same learning environment, every student will learn very different things. Because everyone brings with them different prior knowledge, different interests, and personal goals, values, talents, networks. I consider it my responsibility as a teacher to create such a rich learning environment in which the students can manoeuvre and to make sure that students receive the coaching, supervision and – yes, also every now and then - instruction that will help them in their personal development.

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Background 

Remon Rooij is an associate professor in the section Spatial Planning & Strategy at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, department of Urbanism. Remon has a background in Urbanism, Real Estate & Construction Management, and Transport, with a strong interest in anything to do with the development, renewal and evaluation of academic curriculums in the field, not only of the built environment, but of engineering education in general. Over the years, Remon has acted in a wide variety of roles in countless education related projects and initiatives: as teacher and educator, course and curriculum designer, educational policy advisor and pedagogical researcher. For a long time, Remon combined his work in academia with his role as coach and trainer in male artistic gymnastics at a (inter)national level. This continues to have a pervasive influence on his approach to teaching and learning, since Remon still applies the many valuable lessons and experiences about how to successfully coach and supervise ambitious and talented young people.  

Towards IDEE 

When the call for IDEE went out, Remon, together with Industrial Design & Engineering colleague Sylvia Mooij, had just finished  a project on Healthy Challenging Design Education. The project aimed to investigate how to create the kind of learning environment that enables design students and tutors to make the most out of design education in a healthy manner. At the core of the project was the question of the different roles and responsibilities in creating this environment for students, teachers, educational designers, coordinators of studies, and the programme as a whole. So, when the IDEE theme of ‘Students taking responsibility for their learning process’ was launched, he felt a strong connection and saw it as a natural continuation of his previous work. For Remon, the question of student responsibility is closely related to the question of the co-design of an inviting learning environment, in which students are empowered to set healthy boundaries, are driven by intrinsic motivation, are invited to experiment and take the lead over their learning journey.  

As part of IDEE 

“One of the things I like most about IDEE is that it is a sign of the Executive Board to the larger TU Delft community that we are seriously working towards our pedagogical knowledge agenda in terms of engineering education. Given the TU Delft’s aim to be one of the global leaders in the field of engineering education, this is a development that was long overdue. There is a lot of work to be done, but IDEE is a fantastic step in the right direction.”  

Did you know that ...?

  • Remon is the chair and scientific director of the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education  and the TU Delft CDIO leader. 
  • In his role as 4TU.CEE lead, Remon was actively involved in the initial process of identifying the first three IDEE themes. 
  • Before, Remon was the Bachelor Bouwkunde degree program leader (2012-2020) and the departmental Education leader of Urbanism (2020-2023), 
  • Remon is promotor of Erna Engelbrecht –an IDEE Future Engineering Skills member  – who focuses on evaluation strategies for education innovation projects. Recently, they published an article on Developing and Piloting an Approach to Evaluate Educational Innovation at Course Level.  
  • Remon is promotor of Amira Elnouty, the IDEE PhD candidate on Students Taking Responsibility.