Teaching

Starting in 2027, the Autumn Semester will include a one-week break without lectures, reducing the available teaching time by one week. The conscious selection of content and the planning of contact and self-study time are central here.

UTL supports you with the following offers: 

Booster Workshop ?Ready for PAKETH¡°.

• Good to know: We are also happy to run the workshop in your own department, degree programme or team. 

Recommended courses on Didactica:

• Introduction to Course Design.
• Evidence-based teaching practices for content heavy courses (ab Herbst 2025).

UTL's course programmes for professors, scientific staff and assistants also provide a wide range of suggestions for this.

Book a consultation appointment for your team via . 

Starting with the Spring Semester of 2028, the exam period in the summer will be moved forward to June/July. As in the winter, students now have four weeks to prepare for their examinations.

Active engagement with the learning content and regular feedback help students to continuously process the learning content already during the semester.

Recommended offers from Didactica:

• Classroom assessment techniques.
• Evidence-based teaching practices for content heavy courses (ab Herbst 2025).

With PAKETH, there will be a new form of performance assessment in the form of "integrated performance assessments". Initial information on this can be found in the PAKETH Manual under the heading "Components of performance assessments".

A working group of lecturers, educational developers and Rectorate staff is currently working on guidelines for these "integrated performance assessments".

These will be available at the beginning of the Spring Semester 2026.

A booster workshop on the topic will be offered to lecturers from Autumn Semester 2025.  

Plan a customised workshop for your team with us. Contact us via .

The new programme regulations in PAKETH no longer allow for annual course examinations. Final examinations after the lecture period or integrated performance assessments (iLN) are to be planned as alternative forms of performance assessment.

If the curriculum allows, annual courses can also be planned as larger modules within a semester.

Starting in the Autumn Semester 2027, a 3- to 4-week learning period will replace the two-month exam preparation period in the summer. In the Spring Semester in particular, students will have to work harder than before to process and internalise the course content during lecture times.

The consequence: a necessary change in the learning culture. Lecturers will support this by selecting and prioritising course content and making conscious use of contact hours (course time) and students' self-study time.

Lecturers check whether the number of hours per module (in accordance with ECTS) is sufficient for typical ETH students to achieve the learning objectives required to pass the module. The number of hours is calculated as the sum of contact time, self-study time and exam preparation time. One ECTS credit corresponds to 25-30 hours of work.

Goal: to ensure a realistic and manageable workload for students during the semester.

Note: Bundling smaller, thematically related courses into larger modules can help reduce the mental and administrative workload for students.

Lecturers have the option of promoting continuous engagement with the course content via integrated performance assessments (iLN).

iLNs take place during the semester and can therefore take various forms, such as the previous ¡°semester performances¡±. In addition, they can be used like the previous semester performances to provide early feedback on performance.

Unfavourable workload peaks (e.g. scheduling conflicts when several iLN take place at the same time) can be avoided in most cases through consultation between lecturers and information exchange with the degree programme.

Students need all relevant information in good time regarding:

• performance assessments,
• deadlines,
• examination modalities.

Detailed and up-to-date entries in the Course Catalogue are important and helpful for students.

It is also desirable for students to be informed of the needed self-study time, which experience has shown to be necessary in addition to the contact time per module.

Realisation of the third booster workshop "Ready for PAKETH". The participants engaged in an exciting exchange and developed a finalised design for a course that will be combined from two smaller course units.

Registrations for the next worshop are open.

The contact list of UTL specialists for curriculum development has been published on the PAKETH contact page.

The consultation period for submissions on the concept adjustment has expired and the results have been summarised in a protected page report.

The decisions of the PAKETH steering group on the open implementation decisions were communicated to the Stuko on 6 March 2025. 

Here you can find the review of the PAKETH teaching retreat on 15 January 2025.

protected page Download Keynote Jan Vermant.

protected page Download Keynote Core Team PAKETH.

You can look up the development of the project to date in detail on the PAKETH Context page.

We also recommend the video by Rector G¨¹nther Dissertori about PAKETH.

If you would like to be kept up to date on how PAKETH is progressing, please enter your e-mail address here.