FAUstairs – Advancing Learning Through Innovative Assessment Strategies
FAUstairs – Advancing Learning through Innovative Assessment Strategies
With the FAUstairs project, FAU is taking a forward-looking approach to shaping the future of university teaching. At the heart of the project lies a key question: how can students be better supported in their learning processes when feedback is not limited to final exams at the end of a semester, but instead accompanies the entire learning journey through continuous, competence-based assessment?
Moving beyond purely summative examinations, FAUstairs aims to implement innovative formative assessment formats that provide ongoing feedback — enabling students to receive guidance throughout their learning process, reflect on their progress, and take an active role in shaping their own development. In this way, learning becomes an active and reflective process that helps students build on their strengths and identify challenges early on.
Central components of the project include an Assessment Lab, where lecturers and learning designers develop and test new forms of feedback and evaluation, as well as the use of AI-supported methods and digital twin models. These make it possible to observe and analyze learning processes anonymously and to derive data-informed improvements in teaching. This close integration of pedagogy and technology represents one of the project’s key innovations.
FAUstairs is not an isolated initiative but part of a long-term strategy to redesign the university’s learning architecture. Developed across faculties, the project aims to serve as a model for future-oriented higher education. The newly designed concepts will be gradually integrated into degree programs — hence the name FAUstairs, symbolizing the idea of learning as a staircase on which students progress step by step through well-defined stages.
Through this approach, FAU seeks to establish a teaching and assessment system grounded in competence development, a strong feedback culture, and data-driven innovation in teaching – thereby providing new momentum for a learning-oriented university.
Under the overall responsibility of Vice President Education, Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard, the project is implemented in cooperation between the University Executive Board, the Competence Center Education (Prof. Dr. Svenja Bedenlier; Prof. Dr. Nicole Kimmelmann), and the Department of Computer Science (Didactics of Computer Science, Prof. Dr. Marc Berges; Knowledge Representation, Prof. Dr. Michael Kohlhase). The overall coordination of the project is managed by Dr.-Ing. Annabel Lindner.
The FAUstairs project is funded by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre (Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education) for an anticipated period of six years, with a total budget of seven million euros.
For more information, visit: www.faustairs.fau.de