Teaching award

Teaching Award 2025

This year, the best teaching concept (€2,500) will be honoured with the general teaching award and the themed teaching award focusing on "Teaching and learning culture in times of AI" (€2,500) . Two outstanding teaching concepts were selected for the Teaching Awards 2025 from the nominations received.

Based on the quality of all the nominations received, the ALe panel of experts initially agreed on a shortlist in each case. These were as follows:

Shortlist General Teaching Award:

• Prof Dr Delia Brauer with the course|class "Applied Glass Technology and Glass Industry Excursions"
• Dr Manuel Robert Quaschner with the course|class "Linear Algebra I"
• Dr Antje Rauers with the course|class "Out of the box: Development of an intervention to reduce negative age stereotypes"

Shtortlist Topic-related teaching award:

• Dr Manuel Robert Quaschner with the course|class "Linear Algebra I"

General teaching award

The prize for the best course concept (€2,500) goes to Dr Antje Rauers ( Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences) for the (block) seminar "Out of the box: Developing an intervention to reduce negative age stereotypes".

The reasons for the selection are as follows:

With her seminar, Dr Rauers impressively succeeds in transferring theoretical content into practical application scenarios and specifically promoting a wide range of student competencies. The seminar is thus an outstanding example of application-oriented university teaching in the master's programme. The focus is on developing psychological intervention concepts to reduce negative age stereotypes - a socially highly relevant topic that is often neglected in public discourse. The students work in a didactically very well-structured scenario that is characterised by a high degree of authenticity: They respond to a simulated job advertisement for a fictitious client institution, develop their own intervention programmes in small groups, present these to a 'selection committee' and reflect on their concepts at the end.
In addition to applying psychological theories and empirical findings, students strengthen their conceptual, communicative and argumentative skills. One of the reasons for this is the consistent support of the learning process through methodically diverse exercises and soft skills units - for example on feedback, professional presentation and creativity techniques. The students' appreciation of this course should also be emphasised: The seminar was not only didactically excellently structured, but also motivating, practical and highly conducive to learning.

Further information on this General Teaching Award of the Friedrich Schiller University 2025.

Thematic teaching award

Dr Manuel Robert Quaschner (Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science) received the prize in the thematic focus area "Teaching and learning culture in times of AI" (€2,500) for the exercise and tutorial "Linear Algebra I".

Dr Manuel Robert Quaschner's teaching concept for the exercise and tutorial "Linear Algebra I" is characterised by the special didactic integration of AI tools, which addresses both the challenges of teaching in the induction period and those of increasing digitalisation. This is achieved through the targeted use of AI-generated mathematical proofs, which are critically analysed by students in short Moodle tests and checked for logical consistency and technical correctness. This not only deepens subject-specific skills, but also teaches and promotes the conscious and differentiated use of AI tools.
The concept also impresses with its successful combination of analogue and digital teaching formats. The didactic design follows a staged structure from guided to self-employed work and uses digital task formats (e.g. single-choice tests at analysis level) to achieve higher cognitive learning objectives in digital contexts. The consistent integration of peer feedback and the structured support of individual learning processes are also outstanding.
In their nomination, the students particularly emphasised Dr Quaschner's high level of comprehensibility and motivating supervision and praised his teaching concept as exemplary in terms of subject-specific, didactic and technological aspects.

Both teaching awards will be presented at this year's DIES LEGENDI - Teaching Day on 18 November 2025. In addition to awarding the teaching prizes and presenting the teaching projects funded by the ALe, the DIES LEGENDI - Day of Teaching is the annual format for exchanging ideas and thoughts on studying and teaching across disciplines and across the university.

Further information on this topic-related teaching award of the Friedrich Schiller University 2025.