Innovative learning platform: This is how NRW is revolutionizing teaching in the future!

Innovative learning platform: This is how NRW is revolutionizing teaching in the future!

On August 21, 2025, the Moodle & ILIAS adaptive usable (MIau.nrw) project was announced, representing a significant advance in higher education in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The goal is to develop media didactic and technical approaches to create adaptive self-learning courses. The learning management systems Moodle and ILIAS are used, which have to cooperate with various universities in the region in order to enable more effective and individual teaching. This initiative is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and runs from December 1, 2022 to March 31, 2026.

The MIau.nrw project has produced a variety of results, including a guide to adaptive teaching with valuable design recommendations for teachers as well as course templates and demo courses. All materials developed are available to teachers free of charge. The recommendations were drawn up in close collaboration with the Center for Science Didactics and relevant department teachers. This tailored support aims to improve the individual adaptation of learning offerings to the requirements and learning paths of students.

Individualized learning paths

Adaptive teaching enables customized design of learning content, with students receiving different content and materials based on their individual needs and levels of knowledge. Adaptive systems analyze the usage behavior of learners and adapt the content accordingly in order to increase both learning motivation and learning success. If you fail an assessment, for example, another learning module becomes visible that presents content in alternative formats, such as videos. This methodology promotes a more active interaction with the learning material and is used in particular in the e-learning platform ILIAS, which allows the creation of courses at different levels of complexity, such as hsbi.de writes.

In addition, the MIau.nrw project examines adaptive functions from an application-related perspective and develops low-threshold models for adaptive learning units. These adaptive systems not only use fixed adjustments, but also feedback methods to optimally adapt the content to the learners. Engaging in this adaptive space could significantly increase interaction and interest in digital teaching formats, as reported by news.rub.de reported.

Technological developments

In the context of recent technological developments, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern education and training systems is increasingly emphasized. The use of AI is crucial to automatically adapt educational trips to learners’ skill levels. AI offers decision support and evaluates learning progress through so-called learning analytics. Adaptive learning paths can help to capture the learner's level of knowledge and provide appropriate recommendations for the further learning process fraunhofer.de.

The implementation of these technologies promises not only to increase student motivation, but also to optimize the use of e-learning materials and reduce the time required. Greater use of gamification and dynamic difficulty adjustments is seen as an effective method to further improve students' learning experiences.

Teachers and those interested have the opportunity to learn more about adaptive approaches and take part in training courses on adaptive teaching. The MIau.nrw team is available for questions and support at the email address miau.nrw@hsbi.de and holds an open consultation hour via Zoom on the last Monday of the month.