Third party funded individual grant
Acronym: FAUstairs
Start date : 01.10.2025
End date : 30.09.2031
Website: https://www.faustairs.fau.de/
The FAUstairs project aims to improve academic success. The new teaching architecture developed and implemented as part of the project focuses on promoting learning and subject-specific skills, which are central components of FAU’s internal definition of academic success. Innovative and AI-supported formative and summative assessments are designed to support students in developing these skills. In addition, data-based modelling of FAU degree programmes is being used to develop a privacy-compliant monitoring system that allows the learning behaviour of students to be analysed, thus facilitating appropriate educational responses on the part of teachers or the learning environment. Educational and technical innovations are intertwined to create a holistic, competence-oriented teaching and learning environment.
A key component of the FAUstairs teaching architecture is formative assessment, which enables targeted feedback to be given to students during their studies and courses. This feedback helps students to deepen their understanding of the subject matter and develop their skills systematically. Continuous feedback and reflection on their own learning process promotes the acquisition of skills, with the learning process itself – both in terms of self-regulation by learners and adaptive adjustment of teaching by lecturers – becoming increasingly central.
FAUstairs aims to highlight the considerable need for innovation in the area of assessment at all levels, to exploit existing scope for action, to identify potential challenges and to develop solutions together with relevant stakeholders, including the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts. The success of the project is continuously monitored and evaluated using various parameters, in particular, study success rates.
FAUstairs is based on three central pillars::