The principle of "freedom of research and teaching" also applies to teachers and lecturers at the TUHH. They can plan and organise their courses according to their own ideas. At the same time, lecturers often report the frustrating impression that students are only interested in what content is tested and how the associated forms of examination can be organised with as little effort as possible. They often underestimate the fact that the form of examination they choose indicates what is actually relevant in their course.

The concept of constructive alignment helps teachers and lecturers not only to harmonise learning objectives and teaching/learning methods, but also to include the forms of examination in the planning. The "constructive alignment" of these three elements is of central importance, as it helps students to better understand the objectives of a course and avoids misunderstandings between teachers and students. At the same time, the concept enables the implementation of the central requirement of the Bologna reform for a competence-orientated design of teaching (cf. Schaper et al. 2012).