Teaching Award at TU Braunschweig: It’s the students who decide! Lehrveranstaltungen in fünf Kategorien ausgezeichnet
The student jury has made its decision: on 3 November, the best courses at Technische Universität Braunschweig were honoured with the TU Teaching Award 2026. This year, students submitted just under 250 nominations for 120 courses from the previous summer and winter semesters. The award was presented in five categories.
Excellent teaching is the foundation of forward-looking studies. However, it is difficult to assess from the outside. At TU Braunschweig, therefore, students also have the opportunity to decide which courses, taught by both teaching staff and students, were particularly good.
The TU Teaching Award will be presented for the third time in 2026. “We want to empower people to make a difference in our world. Current challenges – AI, climate change and political conflicts – demonstrate just how important this is. Good teaching empowers students to act responsibly, even in the face of uncertainty,” says TU President Professor Angela Ittel. “With the Teaching Award, we honour the people who make this possible and emphasise the high value we place on high-quality, modern teaching at our university.”
For Professor Stefanie Hartz, Vice-President for Teaching Innovation, the award-winning courses demonstrate what teaching can achieve: they spark curiosity, encourage students to develop their own ideas and create spaces where individual strengths are nurtured. For Professor Knut Baumann, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, students bring a crucial perspective to the nomination of outstanding courses, as they experience first-hand every day how teaching fosters understanding, sparks enthusiasm and gives them the confidence to master even difficult tasks.
An overview of the award winners
Best Undergraduate Teaching
The award for best undergraduate teaching went to the lecture ‘Introduction to Entrepreneurship’ by Professor Bastian Kindermann, Till Böckmann and Julia Hennig-Cardinal von Widdern from the Institute for Marketing and Innovation.
Students rated the course as particularly interactive and practical. Instead of sitting a theoretical examination, they drew up their own business plans and presented their start-up ideas in the form of pitches. “I have particularly fond memories of the course because it combined academic quality, good organisation and a motivating atmosphere very effectively,” read one nomination.
Best Lecture
The lecture ‘AI in Business: Fundamentals and Fields of Application’ by Professor Frederik Möller, Ahmad Iqbal Bin Mohd Shahir Shamsir and Jenny Neumann from the Data-Driven Enterprise department at the Institute for Business Information Systems was nominated no fewer than 24 times – and honoured as the best lecture by the student jury.
The students particularly appreciated the teaching staff’s playful approach to conveying theory. Through video content, quizzes and ‘challenges’, they managed to make the course engaging despite the large number of participants. Guest lectures demonstrated how AI can be applied in real-world business contexts. “Although the course was only introduced this semester, for me it is one of the best courses I have attended so far,” reads one nomination.
Best Seminar
In the ‘Best Seminar’ category, the students chose the block seminar ‘Holocaust Education’ led by Benedikt Einert from the Institute of History. The students were particularly impressed by Einert’s ability to convey this challenging and sensitive subject matter. The participants’ perspectives were actively and thoughtfully discussed and incorporated into the seminar’s structure. “The course’s great popularity and the fact that it was chosen by the students as the best seminar speak for themselves,” said Einert.
The students were particularly impressed by Einert’s ability to convey this challenging and sensitive subject matter. The participants’ perspectives were actively and thoroughly discussed and incorporated into the seminar’s structure. “The great popularity and consistently high demand for his seminars reflect just how much his commitment and teaching are valued,” the nomination states.
Best Tutorial / Best Laboratory
The teaching award for ‘Best Tutorial / Best Laboratory’ goes to Dr. Naser Al Natsheh, from the Institute of Mechanics and Adaptronics, for the course ‘Engineering Mechanics 1 for Mechanical Engineering’.
The eleven student nominations highlighted Dr. Natsheh’s talent for introducing first-year students to the challenging content of engineering mechanics. Practical examples and experiments helped students to understand the subject matter. “After the tutorial, I always felt that I could easily solve typical problems on the topic,” read one nomination.
Best Student-Led Teaching
The winner of the teaching award in the ‘Best Student-Led Teaching’ category is Leon Alemann from the Institute of Applied Mechanics.
His tutorial on ‘Technical Mechanics 2’ stood out for its thorough preparation and clear structure. In addition to the course materials themselves, Alemann created his own diagrams and examples and also offered voluntary revision sessions ahead of the examination. The student council commented: “Many students believe that without Leon Alemann’s special support and motivation, they would not have been able to successfully complete this very demanding course.”
The selection process
The award-winning courses were attended by students during the past winter and summer semesters. The students had the right to nominate candidates and selected the winners. The subject groups from the six faculties nominated up to ten courses, from which a twelve-member student jury selected the winners based on the students’ reasons, expert reports from the subject groups and student councils, and evaluation results. Key criteria included the clarity and structure of the teaching, the teaching methods used, student engagement, subject-specific expertise, and social and ethical responsibility.