The Awareness in Teaching Award recognizes courses that meet the following criteria:

Student-Centered Teaching 

The course…

• Takes into account different learning paces by continuously assessing the learning progress of all students and adapting teaching accordingly where necessary.
• Encourages independent engagement with learning content and provides sufficient time for students to work through materials.
• Enables students to demonstrate knowledge and skills in different ways (Tan & Matz 2025a).
• Offers diverse participation formats and varies them throughout the semester, such as written contributions, oral discussions, chats/digital discussion forums, anonymous feedback options, digital polling tools, etc. (Tan & Matz 2025b).
• Creates a positive learning atmosphere by actively collecting student feedback — anonymously or personally, orally or in writing, digitally or analog — regarding collaboration and the course itself (Tan & Matz 2025b).

Teaching Methods

The course…

• Promotes participation of all students through a variety of interactive teaching methods, such as small group work, presentations, written assignments, student projects, quizzes, preparatory or follow-up questions, playful or game-based formats, etc. (TU Wien 2020, pp. 6–7).
• Establishes a safer learning environment through diverse teaching methods, enabling students to contribute more comfortably and participate actively (Muhl et al. 2018, p. 6).
• Takes students’ differing prior knowledge into account, for example by concretizing content for students with limited prior knowledge, stimulating engagement through questions for students with moderate prior knowledge, and challenging advanced students through references to research and academic literature (TU Wien 2020, p. 8).
• Presents and communicates learning content and information in multiple ways (Tan & Matz 2025a).

Materials

The course…

• Uses teaching materials written in diversity-sensitive language that are accessible, inclusive, and barrier-free, for example videos with subtitles or transcripts (OER University of Graz 2025, p. 1).
• Presents learning content in different formats and varies materials throughout the semester, e.g., text, audio, or video (Tan & Matz 2025c).
• Provides materials and resources for preparation and follow-up digitally (Muhl et al. 2018, p. 7; Tan & Matz 2025c).

Assessment Modalities

The course…

• Clearly aligns learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment methods.
• Continuously monitors students’ learning progress through small quizzes, interim submissions, protocols, or other activities that do not count toward the final grade (formative assessment) (Tan & Matz 2025d).
• Designs learning outcomes and assessment criteria with consideration for diversity and inclusion, ensuring that requirements are challenging yet achievable for all students.
• Establishes and communicates assessment criteria early and transparently so students understand evaluation standards and expectations for successfully completing assessments (Tan & Matz 2025d).
• Offers different assessment formats depending on the course type, such as oral and written exams, term papers, or digital formats (Tan & Matz 2025d).
• Provides targeted exam preparation activities, for example by discussing previous exam questions, conducting mock exams, or jointly reviewing typical task formats (Tan & Matz 2025d).