“Around the world” podcast
Episode 8: Simon Beausaert, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Welcome to a new edition of the “Educationalist: Around the world” podcast! This week I am delighted to be joined by my colleague Simon Beausaert, Associate Professor of Educational Sciences at the Department for Educational Research and Development, School of Business and Economics (SBE), Maastricht University in The Netherlands.
Simon is director of the Master program Learning and Development in Organisations, where he also teaches and coaches students. He leads the SBE Learning Academy, responsible for supporting faculty professional development, and is a member of the management team of the Educational Institute of the faculty, responsible for faculty development and educational innovation. Simon’s research focuses on how to support workplace learning and on how to organise performance appraisal in the workplace. He is often consulted by schools and organisations on how to strategically support workplace learning, course and curriculum design, performance appraisal and activating didactical methods.
In this podcast, we talk about the faculty development approach developed at the Learning Academy, based on educational research and combining more formal/ structured with informal/ less structured learning, complemented by a variety of resources that can facilitate independent, self-paced learning, mainly online. Simon favours an approach where educational developers play a supportive role, as they inspire and reflect together with faculty on their teaching practice. We also discuss about how the pandemic saw the Learning Academy develop a more iterative and responsive faculty development approach, based on a constant dialogue with faculty to determine their changing needs. Simon gives some interesting examples of initiatives undertaken in the past years, including developing a network of mentors from various departments and offering innovation grants to support faculty ideas for enhancing teaching and learning.
To hear about all this and more, I kindly invite you to listen to our conversation.
You can catch up with our previous stories here:
- A group-based approach to online course design, by Kate Mitchell, University of Melbourne, Australia;
- From solo artists to jazz ensembles: Peer support as a tool for teacher development, by Sanna Eronen, University of Vaasa, Finland;
- Sharing stories and practices of assessment in emergency remote teaching, by Sukaina Walji, University of Cape Town, South Africa;
- Inter-institutional partnerships in faculty development: A crowdsourced list with examples form around the world;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 1: Jessamyn Neuhaus;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 2: Online Learning Toolkit (OLT);
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 3: Jo Stroud;
- For real change, we need educational leaders who are CHIC, by Colin Simpson, Monash University, Australia;
- Crossing boundaries: Reflections by a former academic developer, by Tracy Zou, Chinese University of Hong Kong;
- One for all, and all for one: A nationwide vision of inter-institutional faculty development, by Manuel João Costa (University of Minho) and Sandra Soares (University of Aveiro), Portugal;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 4: Multimedia support for teaching and learning, with Marco Toffanin;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 5: Faculty peer learning, with Adina Dudau;
- How faculty development can contribute to the well-being of academics: Reflections from practice, by Inken Gast, Maastricht University, The Netherlands;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 6: Digital competencies and internationalisation, with Chahira Nouira;
- “Around the world” podcast, episode 7: Institutional support for the use of educational technology, with Jenae Cohn.
This post is part of the “Around the world” series on faculty development. Watch this space in the coming months for more inspiration on professional development approaches in Higher Education from around the globe.