Students Taking Responsibility for Their Own Learning: Insights from TU Delft

Authors

Erdem Onan, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Ted Adrichem, TU Delft Teaching Academy, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Serdar Aşut, Department of Architectural Engineering + Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Margreet Docter, Department of Bionanoscience, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Olga Ioannou, Department of Architectural Engineering + Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Remon Rooij, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; Aleksandar Staničić, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59490/mt.244

Keywords:

Responsibility for Learning, Facilitators and Barriers of Student Responsibility, Pedagogical Affordances for Student Responsibility, Educational Approaches

Synopsis

Helping students to develop a sense of responsibility for their learning is widely recognized as a key goal of higher education. OECD identifies 'taking responsibility' as one of the three critical transformative competencies that every student should develop to navigate the unpredictable societal, economic, and environmental challenges of the future. Yet, taking responsibility, particularly in the context of learning, is a complex construct as it carries multiple meanings, interpretations, and implications. 

TU Delft's IDEE (Innovation in Delft Engineering Education) Initiative aims to address these complexities within the Students Taking Responsibility for Their Own Learning Process theme. This book, which is one of the early outputs of this initiative, presents our initial findings and lays the foundation for future research.

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Author Biographies

Erdem Onan, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Erdem Onan is a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft. He holds a master's degree in educational sciences from the Learning Education and Technology Research Unit at the University of Oulu, Finland. Before joining TU Delft, he worked as a doctoral candidate at Maastricht University. Integrating insights from educational and cognitive psychology, his research aims to help students become effective self-regulated learners.

Ted Adrichem, TU Delft Teaching Academy, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Ted Adrichem, based in Amsterdam, is currently a Project Manager IDEE at TU Delft. Ted Adrichem brings experience from previous roles at TU Delft, Universiteit Leiden and Albert Heijn. He holds a 2017 - 2019 Master's degree in Social and Organisational Psychology at Universiteit Leiden.

Serdar Aşut, Department of Architectural Engineering + Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Serdar Aşut is an educator and researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft. His works explore topics at the intersection of digital technologies and the built environment, including computational methods, creative robotics, digital fabrication, and architecture and design education. He is an architect and has led and participated in numerous interdisciplinary projects spanning robotics, educational research, and filmmaking. His work has received grants from numerous organizations, including the Dutch Creative Industries Fund, SURF, TU Delft Open Education Stimulation Fund, the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, and the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships.

Margreet Docter, Department of Bionanoscience, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Margreet Docter is a research technician and teacher at the department of Bionanoscience of the faculty of Applied Sciences. In the past, Margreet did a lot of work on the development of single molecule fluorescent microscope setups. Currently, Margreet focusses most of her time on teaching and education initiatives. To name but a few examples, Margreet collaborates on the BSc Nanobiology curriculum renewal and has worked on several education innovations, such as VR and the development of a new learning platform: ALPACA. In her SUTQ project, Margreet focussed on training teaching assistants, who are important partners in educating students to foster students’ intrinsic motivation and learning agility.

Olga Ioannou, Department of Architectural Engineering + Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Olga is Assistant Professor at AET, Chair of Building Innovation and co-leader of the Circular Built Environment (CBE) Hub of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. Her current research focuses on circular products and processes with an emphasis on the design of bio-based circular building products and the creation of bio-based value networks. She is particularly interested in the systemic character of circularity and how it challenges the established processes for the production of the built environment, stakeholder relations and societal values towards a circular society. With a strong research background on architectural engineering education, Olga has developed and is currently coordinating several educational initiatives with the aim of integrating circularity in BK curricula.

Remon Rooij, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

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.

Aleksandar Staničić, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Aleksandar Staničić is an architect and assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft. He was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at TU Delft (2018–20), a postdoctoral fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT (2017–18), and a research scholar at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University (2016–17). He is an executive editor of TU Delft’s Footprint Architecture Theory Journal (2020-).

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Students working at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology

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July 8, 2026

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Data availability differs between chapters. For chapters where data is shared, specific details and access information are provided within that chapter. If datasets or supplementary materials are available from external sources, these sources are listed in the chapter's bibliography.

Copyright (c) 2026 Erdem Onan, Ted Adrichem, Serdar Aşut, Margreet Docter, Olga Ioannou, Remon Rooij, Aleksandar Staničić

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978-94-6384-976-0

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2026-07-08

How to Cite

Onan, E., Adrichem, T., Aşut, S., Docter, M., Ioannou, O., Rooij, R., & Staničić, A. (2026). Students Taking Responsibility for Their Own Learning: Insights from TU Delft. TU Delft OPEN Books. https://doi.org/10.59490/mt.244