Dealing with differences – Looking back at the Interreg projects Skills4You and COMPAS
Since mid-2021, several SHE staff members have been involved in two cross-border projects that were co-funded by Interreg and the regional province of Limburg. These projects are now coming to an end. A commonality in both projects is that they both produced tools to constructively cope with differences. We worked with partners just over the border in Germany and Belgium in the Eurogio Meus-Rhein.
In the Skills4You project, SHE colleagues focused on the theme of differentiated instruction, a didactical-pedagogical approach that supports teachers in meeting the various learning needs of their students. Focus group interviews were conducted to identify challenges and good practices regarding differentiated instruction in the context of vocational education. The obtained insights were used to develop, implement and evaluate a training for vocational education teachers. In total, 327 teachers from Dutch Limburg and Belgian Limburg participated in the training. Materials such as interactive videoclips and infographics containing best practices for differentiated instruction have been disseminated to inform a wider audience. We also aim to publish two academic papers that contain the results obtained.
In the COMPAS project, SHE colleagues explored different ideas about patient safety, and developed educational activities to support healthcare professionals to discuss these different ideas in a constructive way. We developed the ‘Dialogue Doughnut’ to help healthcare professionals get a better understanding of each other’s’ perspectives. Co-creation sessions were organized to discuss how to support the connections between different patient safety initiatives. This resulted in an overview of possibilities to strengthen networks of patient safety. All project activities were undertaken in collaboration with different stakeholders at MUMC+, which facilitated a strong connection to practice. We hope the project is a cause for future collaborations between MUMC+ and SHE.
Finally, in both projects, we benefitted from the diversity that our region has to offer. It highlights that a look across our borders, literally and figuratively, comes with lots of new experiences. If you are curious to learn more about these projects, you can contact Diana Dolmans or Boukje Compen for the Skills4You project and Daniëlle Verstegen or Juliët Beuken for the COMPAS project.
The interactive videoclips that have been developed in the Skills4You project can be found here:
