Educational Development & Research

Education is key to lifelong learning, personal growth and development and benefits our health and future society. Staff and support staff members of our department are driven by their curiosity and a passion for optimising education. We are a diverse multidisciplinary group of creative and adaptive professionals who have a variety of academic and professional backgrounds and experiences. We combine the redesign of theory-based teaching practices with investigating these practices in close collaboration with students, teachers, educators, leaders/managers, scholars and health care professionals. In designing innovative approaches to learning, teaching, evaluation and assessment, we build bridges between theory and practice, which we consider our strength. Moreover, we innovate and investigate why innovative approaches that are preferably theory-based might work in a specific context for a specific target group with particular objectives in mind.

We collaborate closely with the FHML Institute for Education and the School of Health Professions Education (SHE) as well as with the MUMC+ and Edlab. We also have strong connections with various institutions within the Maastricht region, the Netherlands, and at an international level. We share a worldwide common interest in innovation and research in education in general and in health sciences education in particular. We are located on the fourth and fifth floor of Universiteitssingel 60.

Activities are:

• We offer educational support to teachers, educational coordinators and leaders within the various bachelor’s and master’s programmes of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences and to medical specialists of MUMC + in the following four domains: Faculty Development, Instructional Design and e-Learning, Programme Evaluation and Assessment. We support them in designing, innovating and investigating their teaching practices.
• We participate in a broad range of teaching roles in the various bachelor’s and master’s programmes of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, such as tutoring and mentoring roles and serving on exam, course planning, and educational committees and on management teams.
• We participate as teachers, coordinators and managers within the Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE), a postgraduate master’s programme whose graduates have leading positions within the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences and all over the world in the domain of innovation, management and research in the health sciences.
• We are strongly involved in research activities related to approaches to instruction, assessment, faculty development and implementation, and evaluation and quality enhancement. We also have strong connections with the School of Health Professions Education.
• We offer training and consultation worldwide to improve health professions education practices and have partnerships with institutions worldwide in close collaboration with SHE Collaborates.

About Us
The management team:

• Diana Dolmans, Chair 
• Ineke Wolfhagen, Member
• Sabina Bulic, Managing Director
• Lilian Swaen, Secretary
• Raymond Bastin, Controller.