Together with the EDLAB Advisory Board, the innovation department aims to enhance the quality of UM education by defining themes in close co-operation with all UM faculties, and to initiate pilots in all faculties on these themes.
EDLAB Innovation Projects and Toolkits (ordered alphabetically)
The "I" in Group Work
Communities of Practice
Education That Moves You (ETMY) is a project that introduced standing desks into the UM problem-based learning tutorials for a more dynamic approach to learning. You want to why sitting is so bad? Or how to adjust the PBL approach to get the most out of a standing classroom?
This research project reflected on UM’s educational philosophy and practice around PBL. The project gave room for evidence-based educational change such as a more creative and flexible PBL practice along the principles of constructive, collaborative, contextual, and self-directed learning.
The taskforce International Classroom is a community of practice bound together by shared expertise and passion for the development of intercultural communication skills among both students and staff. It enables the sharing of best practices and experiences between disciplines and faculties.
Recent research at UM has shown that students experience difficulties to self-regulate their education. Following the successful implementation of Study Smart, this project aims to deepen our understanding of ‘self-regulation’ in learning and build towards a curriculum that supports self-regulated learning at UM.
What makes students experience a sense of connection to the university? What contributes to students motivation to learn in their community? This project researches the topic of student engagement and develops workshops and trainings for a stronger community. More information will be coming soon.
This project researched the difficulties that students have in their self-study. Study smart has its own website where you can find evidence-based resources and trainings in order to improve students’ self study through improved practice, raising awareness, and increasing reflection.
Tutor Training in 360°
The goal of this project is to develop 360° videos of a tutorial group, which can be integrated into several UM-wide PBL tutor trainings. The main theme of the 360-degree videos is managing group dynamics by the tutor, enabling more authentic teacher professionalisation.
This research project collected and evaluated experience of UM students and staff with emergency remote learning during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected in order to draw lessons learned for the future of UM.
Information about UM's educational philosophy
Learning ist constructive – collecting and generating knowledge together; contextual – seeing the relevance of what you do; collaborative – working together and sharing responsibility; and self-directed – actively participating and taking initiative, online and on campus.
Based on these principles, UM’s interpretation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL), takes various shapes and formats. Click through the resources below for further information about the principles or ideas for creative PBL practice.
This video series is designed to explain the educational principles of Maastricht University (UM), namely that learning should be collaborative, constructive, contextual and self-directed (CCCS). The intention is to guide the teachers on how they can implement these principles in their everyday teaching methodologies.
Creative PBL Practices
Tired of the 7 steps? In this video series UM teaching staff explain their creative approaches to PBL such as flipped classrooms, blended learning or tutorless instruction. They follow the UM-PBL pillars of a constructive, contextual, collaborative, and self-directed approach to learning.
Based on the need to familiarise students with different backgrounds with our educational approach, this project developed five guiding principles to improve the design of PBL introductions based on the CCCS principles and provides illustrative examples from all faculties for inspiration.
PBL & Research Skills
This project reflects on the quality of research skills and the possibilities to train them in an integrated manner. A co-authored handbook has been developed which provides information for teachers about PBL and research skills education which can lead to improved quality of education within and across faculties.