SIG Education

Education SIG

The Education SIG aims to bring together educators from across the TU Delft to strengthen the integration of values, such as sustainability, inclusion, and responsibility, into education. For this, we will gather inspiring examples, exchange practices, and build a strong network of educators to support mutual learning and enhance the visibility of on-going efforts. By working together and involving students, the SIG aims to deliver best-practices and form an outlook for integrating values in TU Delft education. In this way, the SIG will contribute to a future-oriented education that prepares engineers to make responsible choices for society and the planet.

Vision

We begin this community by defining what we mean by Design for Values in Education. Drawing on the Delft Design for Values Institute’s definition, we understand Design for Values (DfV) as a design approach aimed at integrating values — like justice, sustainability, integrity, and inclusion — in all stages of the design process. In education, this means foregrounding sensitivity to values rather than treating them as a constraint at the end of a design process or educational journey.

This perspective recognizes that values fundamentally guide decision-making about teaching approaches and learning experiences, in addition to the engineering and design approaches being taught. DfV in education requires that educators recognize the values they bring into their teaching, and that students learn to recognize, articulate, and reflect on stakeholder values and their own values.

Given the plurality of value systems across individuals, societies, and institutions, tensions between values are inevitable. DfV in education encourages reflection, critical thinking, and explicit engagement with values as skills to be cultivated rather than imposed — moving beyond typical technical education where values often remain implicit.

Aim and Objectives

Value-thinking at TU Delft already takes place through dedicated ethics lines, student portfolios, and courses that include stakeholder perspectives. However, these initiatives are not yet widespread across all programs, and students sometimes struggle to operationalize abstract concepts like stakeholder values in their technical work.

The Education SIG aims to facilitate the explicit integration of value-thinking into TU Delft education by:

• Creating a TUD-wide community of value-thinking educators and allies, including students and support staff
• Raising awareness and fostering cultural change about values in education across disciplines
• Developing a strategy for integrating values in TU Delft education

Current Activities

We are getting started with:

• Building an overview of teaching experiences, initiatives, resources, and experienced colleagues — and a platform to share them
• Developing teaching practice guidelines around value-thinking through reflective sessions with the education community
• Engaging with TUD education decision-makers to integrate values into curricula, teaching support, and education training

Funding and Partnerships

Activities within the Education SIG are funded from September 2025 to December 2027 by the Delft Design for Values Institute. The SIG works closely with the TU Delft Teaching Academy and seeks collaboration with related initiatives such as TU Delft IDEE and the Inclusive Education Community.

Contact

Interested in joining the edSIG community? Write to edSIG-ddfv@tudelft.nl

If you’d like a proactive role in organizing activities and decision-making within the SIG, indicate this in your email with a description of how you could contribute.