Jan Riezebos professor in Educational Innovation

Dr. Jan Riezebos is appointed to the new chair of Educational Innovation at FEB. At the faculty, Riezebos has contributed greatly to educational development, both as a committee chairman for the professionalization of university teaching and as a member of a project team for international accreditation. Riezebos will remain academic director of FEB’s Careers Company for two days a week.

This chair is absolutely interesting. Riezebos: “It is interesting and equally puzzling that as a faculty – and I think the same goes for our entire university – we offer our knowledge to society and we try to change society for the better by applying our academic know-how, but at the same time we seem to forget to use the same academic knowledge for improving the quality of our own education. So, this is what we want to start doing now. And will do from now on.”

Active research is already being conducted. Riezebos and his faculty members of FEB - renowned for their knowledge on process improvement - already set an example of putting evidence into practice. They used a management game, analyzed student performance on all aspects and adjusted their teaching every year, based on the research outcome. This led to educational improvements. “This illustrates the way we can use research to enhance the quality of education. It is one of many possibilities yet to be explored.”

The best approach. Riezebos has clear-cut ideas on the subject. “My own faculty is a great place to start, with so many internationally renowned professors who are really committed to teaching and educational innovation and likewise interested students that would like to help improve education. I am building a platform for several groups, in which students and teachers from various backgrounds share their knowledge and together study the effect of educational improvements and innovations.”

Examples of themes to be explored are active learning, formative testing and flipped classrooms. “What makes our approach unique is that we are not so much concerned with talking about or creating a buzz around the realization of innovative methods per sé. What we want to do is: focus on the scientific analysis of experiments with the implementation of innovations in courses and extra-curricular modules. The important question is not: is it new? The important question is: does it work? Can we repeat or enhance the results in a logical way?”

Essential in the approach of Riezebos is his commitment to investing in teamwork. “You may call me creative, or an organizer. But most of all I consider myself to be a team player. My goal is to examine and achieve innovations together with other people.”

A novelty. This Educational Innovation chair is new in the Netherlands. Riezebos: “The best examples of the ideal we are trying to achieve are to be found in research-driven Business Schools in Copenhagen, Edinburgh, Leeds and Cardiff. In this respect the University of Groningen may be considered to be the Dutch national frontrunner in Educational Innovation.”

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CV
As a young student Jan Riezebos was inspired by the enthusiasm of the (then) very young teachers and researchers he encountered while studying Econometrics in Groningen. Jan started teaching at Industrial Engineering. He loved and still loves teaching. “Education is fun and challenging. It requires creativity.” As a researcher he specialized in production planning within teams and he took his doctoral degree (PhD) in 2001.