SUMMARY
Nancy L. Van Erp, Ph.D., collaborates with a team of professional educators to advance competency-based medical education across Mayo Clinic's schools and programs. A steadfast advocate for student-centered, constructivist learning environments, she champions active learning approaches that foster conceptual understanding. Dr. Van Erp co-leads the Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Community of Practice, helping medical teams integrate generative AI and automation tools to enhance their work as educators, healthcare professionals and administrators. She also co-chairs the Curriculum, Assessment and Technology Steering Committee, facilitating connections and collaboration across departments.
Dr. Van Erp's academic research reflects her commitment to innovative education and her curiosity and passion for education systems and strategies that promote critical and creative thinking. Her work focuses on and prepares learners with the mindsets, dispositions, values and tools needed to do good work and thrive in a complex world.
Focus areas
- Active learning.
- AI education.
- Character, virtue and values-driven leadership and education.
- Competency-based medical education.
- Concept-based instruction and curriculum.
- Critical and creative thinking.
- Education reform.
- Learning technology.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Van Erp looks at how teachers in health professions can help students learn in lasting and life-changing ways. This includes active learning, teaching big ideas instead of just facts and encouraging students to ask questions. These teaching methods help students understand the material, think deeply and use critical thinking.
Teachers help students make sense of what they learn so they are ready to follow Mayo Clinic's main value: the needs of the patient come first. Research on how people learn best and what kinds of lessons and teaching methods help students think clearly and creatively is important. This kind of learning helps future healthcare workers solve problems and keep learning throughout their careers, always putting the patient first.
Professional highlights
- Director, Curriculum, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Mayo Clinic, 2022-present.
- Co-investigator, Research Experience for Teachers in Artificial Intelligence, funded by National Science Foundation, 2024-2027.
- Kern Family Fellowship, University of Birmingham, UK, 2020-2024.