Thorsten Erle is Lecturer of the Year 2026: ‘I didn’t know this award existed’

Thorsten Erle of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences has been elected Lecturer of the Year 2026. The social psychology teacher is praised for his innovative teaching style in which he lets students carry out experiments themselves.

As every year, the faculties were each able to nominate one lecturer for the title of Lecturer of the Year at Tilburg University. This year, Thorsten Erle, assistant professor at the Department of Social Psychology (TSB), won the prize.

He was pleasantly surprised, Erle tells Univers: ‘Our vice-dean had organized an unexpected meeting at nine o’clock in the morning. But the meeting turned out to be an excuse, so rector Wim van de Donk could hand me the prize.’

Erle: ‘There were also many colleagues to congratulate me and that was a nice surprise. But what I found most unexpected was the nomination by my faculty, also because I didn’t know this prize existed. I also think it’s an honor and a very nice gesture from my students, who nominated me for this.’

Innovative

Erle’s teaching style is innovative because he lets students experience for themselves how experiments can support a theory. For example, students work in class to collect and analyze data, and he lets students compare good and bad studies. In this way, the material often sticks better than when students only read about it, thinks the brand new Teacher of the Year.

The jury also praises Erle’s courage to partly replace the traditional thesis with a project. Erle: ‘You first saw the master’s students who were going to write a thesis once in September. And then there was no contact for months. You didn’t know if they had problems with their progress. And it was also a very uncertain period for the students themselves.’

‘With the pitch-to-peer project, we cut the entire process into six smaller challenges, with a thesis as the end result,’ says Erle. ‘Students work together on so-called pitches and give each other feedback on them. That is very motivating. It gives students more of a sense of belonging and it makes it easier for the teachers. Because the supervisor gets more insight into the progress with these kinds of mini assignments than in the old situation.’

Votes

Half of the results of the election are based on the jury’s verdict. The votes of students count for the other half. As Teacher of the Year, Erle earns an amount of four thousand euros and a nomination for the national election of Teacher of the Year, which is organized by the Dutch National Student Association (ISO).

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