The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) has a history of involvement in improving food science education that dates back 80 years (see Figure 1). IFT was founded in 1939, and 2 years later in 1941, the Committee on Education and Curricula was established. In 1966, the first IFT Food Science Undergraduate Curriculum Minimum Standards was approved as the rubric that undergraduate food science programs needed to attain to be considered an “IFT-approved program.” Then in the mid-1990′s, a group of IFT members conceived the idea of starting an Education Division. The rationale was obvious: a division was needed so that abstracts and symposia on education could be sponsored and submitted to the IFT Annual Meeting. IFT members who supported the idea signed a petition, and a request was submitted to Dan Weber, then Executive Director of IFT. Probationary status for the Education Division was granted in 1995, followed by permanent status in 1997. Since its inception, the Education Division has been active in presenting symposia and hosting oral and poster sessions for individual papers at the Annual Meeting. Clearly, starting the Education Division was an important advancement for a professional organization that approves food science undergraduate degree programs in the U.S. and currently around the world. With presentation of education-related papers at the Annual Meeting, it quickly became clear that there was a need for an IFT-sponsored journal focused on education. After much discussion, the IFT Executive Committee (now IFT Board of Directors; IFT BOD) approved the proposal to start the online Journal of Food Science Education (JFSE). The first issue appeared online in January 2002, and the journal was published quarterly through 2021. So, this leads us to wonder and ask: what has been the impact of the 242 peer-reviewed and the 190 non-peer-reviewed articles published about food science education over the past 19 years? Are professors and instructors teaching and students learning more effectively? Has any of the information shared changed how we think about teaching and learning? Although we haven't done a reader survey or study to determine any potential changes, Amanda Ferguson, Director, IFT Scientific Journals, has download data for articles published between 2006–2021. The top 12 downloaded articles (Table 1) are a mix of book reviews, editorials, and peer-reviewed articles, suggesting that readers have found commentaries and peer-reviewed educational studies very useful and helpful. Topping the list, over 20,000 readers found the topics of Dr. Shelly Schmidt's book review “The Science of Successful Learning” and editorial “Personality Diversity: Extrovert and Introvert Temperaments” of high interest. All totaled, it seems that readers appreciate thought-provoking essays and peer-reviewed studies that discuss aspects of teaching and learning that are practical and personally valuable. Now with the decision by the current IFT BOD to discontinue publishing the online JFSE, there will be two ways that food science educators can share their ideas and educational research within the IFT society. Peer-reviewed, educational research, and review articles will have a section in the Journal of Food Science (JFS), and all other types of articles (e.g., tips for better teaching and learning, editorials, etc.) can be submitted to the currently developing new platform on the IFT website. Even though there are many IFT members in the Education, Extension, and Outreach Division who firmly oppose the IFT BOD decision to discontinue JFSE for economic reasons, it is important that we rally behind and use the new avenues being developed, supported by IFT, and offered to us. The level of visibility of education-related articles in the new system may be better, the same, or worse than they were in JFSE. However, if IFT wants to maintain its high standards in the education and training of students and continuing education of food scientists, then ultimately the best avenues for publishing education articles will need to be in place. With these new ways to publish and share studies and ideas on food science education, it's important to ask ourselves once again: why is it essential that we share ideas in education? What will be the outcomes if we continue to engage with each other? And what will be the consequences if we do not share and engage with each other? Dr. Lee Shulman, President Emeritus of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, wrote that for teaching to be called scholarship, “an activity had to manifest three essential features: it should be public, subject to peer review and evaluation, and accessible for exchange and use by members of one's disciplinary community.”1 Doesn't it make sense that publishing innovations in the classroom and laboratory contributes in a positive and significant way to the scholarship of teaching and learning? If we want to develop and produce excellent students who go on to be outstanding members of the workforce, who are innovative, creative, intelligent, professional, know how to lead, know how to work on a team, and who can help our discipline to stay current and forward-thinking, then we must continue to have excellent and effective teachers in universities, community colleges, Extension service, industry, and government. Publishing one's work and ideas is one very important aspect of the dialog among food science educators, and we strongly encourage you to keep sharing! As Dr. Owen Fennema, Professor Emeritus and then-Editor in Chief of IFT Scientific Journals, wrote in the inaugural issue of JFSE in 2002, “Hopefully, the information published will result in improved instructional practices, more competent food science personnel, a profession that is more attractive to highly skilled students entering the university, and a vigorous level of dialogue among food science educators that has heretofore been seriously deficient.”2 IFT cannot and should not allow a serious deficiency in publication of articles in food science education to ever happen again. Please submit your original research papers and concise reviews related to food science education to JFS, and your teaching tips, editorials, columns, essays, and book reviews to the currently developing online platform. All of this will significantly support and contribute to the future of the food science discipline through excellence in food science education. The authors would like to thank: Dr. Shelly Schmidt for her helpful review of this editorial, and for her outstanding service for the past 7 years as Scientific Editor of JFSE; and Amanda Ferguson, Director, IFT Scientific Journals, for her assistance with the JFSE publication data in Table 1, and for her exceptional and excellent support of JFSE.
Entrepreneurship brings several benefits, such as fostering innovation and productivity, competitiveness, and socioeconomic development. The search for professionals with different skills to overcome the current and foreseen challenges is relevant in the agri-food sector. Problem-based learning (PBL) is described as an instructional approach, which promotes interdisciplinarity and critical thinking, with the potential to meet current challenges. This article describes how PBL, aligned with an innovation program and contest, has been integrated into a master's degree in food engineering to promote academic entrepreneurship. The alignment of the PBL with the program and contest allowed the development of innovative products with a view to solving problems faced by the agri-food sector. The PBL strategy allowed students to mobilize knowledge from several curricular units of food studies for the development of different deliverables to participate in the innovation program and contest. This participation allowed students, supported by business mentors, to demonstrate their products to stakeholders. This way, it was possible to promote innovation in the agri-food sector, stimulating the entrepreneurial spirit among higher education students, and understand its potential for replication and mobilization of skills acquired in different food study courses.
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (3rd Edition), by Steve Krug. 2013. New Riders, ISBN: 978–0321965516 With the huge movement of courses to an online format in 2020 that is continuing into 2021, it's a good time to take a look at aspects of the course that are in digital format. This includes course websites, syllabi, and assignments. Ideally, students would be able to navigate these things to find the information they needed quickly and easily without any help from the instructor. In practice, students often get lost in a tangle of hyperlinks, misinterpret directions, and can't find what they need without help. These experiences increase the undesirable difficulty of the course. Desirable difficulties, a term coined by psychologist Robert Bjork (National Research Council, 1994), are anything that challenges the brain and leads to an increase in long-term retention of information. Undesirable difficulties, on the other hand, are things that take up cognitive space, but do not enhance learning. Undesirable difficulties, such as unclear instructions or a course site that is difficult to navigate, may actually decrease learning because they can disrupt the process of storing information in long-term memory (Chen et al., 2018). We can help decrease undesirable difficulties in courses, particularly in online courses, by providing students a course site that is easy to navigate and assignments with directions that are short and easy to follow. This has the added benefit of reducing the number of emails from students asking where things are on the website or what they are supposed to do in a given assignment! To get started on making our course sites and assignments easier to navigate, we can look at the information currently available on web usability. Steve Krug, a usability consultant, has an excellent—and relatively short—guide to web usability through proper design. In his book, Don't Make Me Think, Revisited, Krug reviews the basic principles of web design for maximum usability, including mobile design. Although this book was originally published around 2000 and the Revisited (3rd) edition was published in 2013, the general principles are still highly useful. People still navigate websites in the same way and have become used to certain conventions, like navigation links being either on the top or the left side of the page. Don't worry, you don't have to know a single line of code to get the full benefit of this book! It's a fast read with plenty of illustrations and examples to explain the points made. It's also full of humor, which definitely helps the points to stick. Krug starts with what he calls his first law of usability: Don't make me think. The design of a website should make where to do and what to do so obvious to the user that they have to use no brainpower to find what they came for. For example, if a student is looking on a course site for an assignment, the link(s) to get there should be so obvious that they can just click, click, click and have their assignment without taking time to hunt for it. But wait, what if we write instructions on how to find things? People won't read them, Krug says. They'll scan the website, stop on the first word or phrase that looks remotely like what they came for, and muddle their way through until they are either too frustrated to continue or they find what they want. This is why, Krug says, we need to design websites like billboards, with as few words as possible and navigation choices made obvious. Backing up and getting to the home page should also be easy to do. Krug points out that people don't mind clicking several times, as long as the path forward is clear and there's an easy way to back up if they click on the wrong thing. In fact, Krug notes that the Back button is the most frequently used button in a web browser! After establishing general usability principles, Krug reviews how to apply those principles to a website and check to be sure they are applied correctly. This includes usability testing. Krug points out that usability testing can be done quickly and easily by a few people without any training and should be done often in the process of developing a website. For faculty putting together a course website, whether in a learning management system or through their own webpage, this usability test can be easily done by the course TA or a student or faculty who hasn't seen the course page before. All you have to do is sit them down in front of the course site, give them a few key tasks to do (maybe finding and downloading the syllabus or finding and submitting an assignment), and watch them do it. Have them describe what they're doing as they do it, take note of what they have trouble with, and correct it to improve ease of use. Maybe the syllabus takes too much time to find or the link to upload assignments isn't clearly marked. Things that may be obvious to the course instructor who put the website together may be confusing or difficult for someone who has never interacted with the course site before. In the Revisited edition, Krug adds some guidelines for mobile use and accessibility. These are great chapters to browse, since many students have poor internet access off-campus and may use a mobile device to access the course website. The course site should be just as accessible and usable on a mobile device as a laptop or desktop. Usability checks should include mobile devices as well. On the topic of accessibility, Krug states that allowing websites to be accessible to people with disabilities usually improve accessibility for everyone. This is a great point and not often made. However, things like larger font size, more separation between sections on a website, and explanations of what images are in alt text improve readability for all, not to mention the alt text explaining what an image is can be useful in situations where the image doesn't load properly. The same usability principles for websites can be applied to instructions for assignments. Assume students won't carefully read the instructions from beginning to end but will scan them looking for specific pieces of information. Make the instructions as short and to the point as possible, preferably in bullet format rather than paragraph format. Make it easy for them to head in the right direction. Have someone look over the assignment and tell you what they think they're supposed to do. Correct as needed. In short, don't make them think about whether they are doing the assignment correctly. Instead, make them think about the course material, which is what they really should be thinking about in the first place.
Teaching Information Literacy in Higher Education: Effective Teaching and Active Learning (1st Edition), by Mariann Lokse, Torstein Lag, Mariann Solberg, Helene N. Andreassen, and Mark Stenersen. 2017. Chandos Publishing, ISBN: 978-0081009215. 174 pages. Continuing on the previous theme of exploring books that are not specifically written for faculty but still involve teaching and learning, I picked up Teaching Information Literacy in Higher Education. Information literacy, always important, is even more important for today's students because they have access to so much information but don't always have the skills to be able to filter, critique, and summarize what they find. This book addresses this issue, giving a comprehensive overview of why information literacy is important and how to teach it to undergraduates. The authors (Lokse, Lag, Solberg, Andreassen, & Stenersen) are all librarians at universities and so have firsthand knowledge of why information literacy is so important. Interestingly, this book is written for university library staff, who usually offer short sessions to students—maybe an hour or two per semester—on information literacy and related topics, like using citations and creating a reference section in a paper. However, many university courses have a writing component, so faculty can also benefit from reading this book and incorporating elements of information literacy into their courses. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter explains why information literacy is important and the intentions of the book, providing a framework for teaching information literacy. This chapter makes an excellent case for the need to teach information literacy to students. Information literacy and its uses are defined in the second chapter. Although it has a number of definitions, information literacy can be considered to be the knowledge and skill set needed to locate, evaluate, process, summarize, and synthesize information. Students need firm grounding in all of these abilities for proper information literacy. Unfortunately, there are several obstacles related to teaching information literacy, including lack of resources and student disinterest. But Lokse and others point out that information literacy is critical for students because it is integral to learning: students need to be able to properly absorb, evaluate, and integrate information for deep learning. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss fundamental principles of how learning works and learning strategies, respectively. Readers of educational literature will find the information in these chapters familiar, but the chapters do contain a good summary of how information is processed by the brain, how working memory operates, and what study strategies are and are not effective. Although the processes of learning are not discussed in great detail, these chapters are a good crash course in the process of learning for those unfamiliar with the topic. After laying this foundation, Lokse and others present an argument on how information literacy impacts critical thinking and academic integrity in Chapter 5. This chapter reinforces the importance of a solid grounding in information literacy for developing critical thinking, since developing information literacy requires critical evaluation of information. Is the source of the information sound? Are established facts used to make the points? How does this information fit in with my understanding of the subject? Do I need to change something about the way I think about this subject? As students work to answer these questions while developing information literacy, they sharpen their critical thinking skills. They also develop a better understanding of why academic integrity, including proper attribution of information, is important for creating sound conclusions and well-supported arguments. Chapter 6 was my favorite chapter in this book because Lokse and others put together a wonderful roadmap of how to construct a learning session for information literacy. The chapter, entitled “Teaching It All”, covers how to set up learning outcomes and develop activities and assessments to achieve those outcomes. Lokse and others provide a number of examples of outcomes, activities, and assessments, which can be tailored to students with different levels of information literacy and sessions of different length. I love seeing practical applications of educational strategies, and this chapter provides great guidance for building educational sessions on information literacy from the ground up. After getting the reader excited about teaching information literacy, the book ends with a short epilogue chapter restating the importance of this topic and encouraging the reader to try out some of the strategies and learn more about the subject. Overall, this book is a good read for anyone concerned with student information literacy and needing a bit of guidance on how to help students become more information literate. Those familiar with education pedagogy can skim the chapters on those topics; Chapter 6 is the chapter that helps you put a plan into action. But the chapters on why this subject is important are also useful, particularly for student questions about why information literacy is important (or even why instructors are so fussy about proper citation). This book can also be used to prompt collaboration between faculty and library staff. Having everyone on the same page about why information literacy is important is critical for helping students develop the skills they need to process the vast amount of information on their discipline and in their everyday lives.
Through a collaboration between a professor in academia and an industry professional, entry-level food science students were given the opportunity to critically evaluate the safety of energy drinks. This evaluation occurred through a General Education (Category A3) course designated "Critical Thinking" at California State University - Long Beach (CSULB), where students were introduced to a variety of controversial issues in food science. The goal of the course was for students to apply critical thinking skills to formulate conclusions that are factual, rather than judgmental and biased. Using Kolb's experiential learning framework, students completed exercises in an active-learning classroom (ALC) environment, which encouraged exploration, reflection, and application. For the exploration phase, students were presented with six commercially available caffeinated beverages and were asked to categorize them as "energy drink" or "not energy drink." For the reflection phase, students were presented with news articles, as well as peer-reviewed scientific research articles. Students were tasked with reflecting on how the information in the research articles confirmed or disproved the information in the news articles. Finally, for the application phase, students were asked whether they believed energy drinks should be banned and why or why not. In conclusion, through Kolb's exploration-reflection-application framework and through the ALC environment, students learned how to use critical thinking to identify fallacies in news coverage of controversial products, such as energy drinks.
Y Professional development for Career Technical Education (CTE) is needed to effectively implement food science curricula in secondary education courses. Providing CTE teachers with professional development training supports increased awareness of food science academic and career pathways among students. The goal of this study was to assess a food science professional development training for Mississippi CTE teachers that would increase their self-perceived knowledge, self-perceived ability to conduct specific food science skills, and self-efficacy to implement food science-based instruction. Thirty-one teachers participated in the 2-h professional development training that provided teachers an experiential learning opportunity to learn and apply food science concepts. Results indicated that the food science professional development training was effective at increasing teachers' self-perceived knowledge and ability to conduct food science skills since the average scores (five-point Likert-type scale, n = 28) in all statements increased (p < 0.001) post training. For example, teachers self-perceived knowledge of the five D's of food product development at pre-survey (M = 2.00 +/- 0.94) increased (p < 0.001) after the training (M = 4.29 +/- 0.60). In addition, teachers' self-perceived ability to employ the five D's of food product development before the training (M = 0.31 +/- 0.54, three-point scale) significantly increased (p < 0.05) post training (M = 1.72 +/- 0.53). Post training, more than 77% of the teachers "agreed" or "strongly agreed" to six out of nine self-efficacy statements which affirmed their belief to teach food science concepts. Overall, teachers were satisfied with the food science professional development training.
Fifty-five Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) comprise the required content for food science degrees approved by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), yet the importance of each outcome for graduate industry readiness is expected to vary. To analyze this variance, we assessed the industry relevance of IFT's recently revised (2018) ELOs and compared them to The University of British Columbia's food science graduate proficiency levels. Additionally, we investigated key learning experiences and future directions of the industry to further strengthen food science programs. Significant, positive correlations were found between industry ELO importance ratings and alumni (r = 0.229, p = 0.002) and new graduate (r = 0.476, p < 0.001) self-reported proficiency levels. ELOs in food safety, critical thinking, and professionalism were rated by industry as most important for graduates. Beyond IFT requirements, labs, case studies, and industry exposure through site visits, Co-op, and guest speakers were rated the most effective course learning activities. Industry respondents advised food science programs ensure a strong background in hands-on product development, application of government regulations, and project management. As the IFT considers further ELO refinements, our study suggests that inclusion of business, sustainability, and food science-specific computational skills could enhance graduate professional preparedness and impact. We hope this study will inform appropriate ELO weighting within food science curricula so that collectively we can best prepare graduates to address food science challenges of the future.
Organizational patterns can serve as a teaching strategy for instructors and as a learning tool for students to develop their expository writing skills, which are commonly required for assignments (for example, laboratory reports and research papers) in Food Science courses and in their future careers. The article discusses the importance of organizational patterns for teaching expository writing through an interdisciplinary collaboration. The teaching collaboration occurred with professors from Food Science, English, and Anthropology in an introductory Food Science course (FSCI 232) taught at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). In FSCI 232, students learned how to use organizational patterns to interpret and explain the content of an infographic obtained from the Food Technology magazine, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). The infographic “ Global Obesity's Expanding Girth, the World is Getting Fatter” served as a visual stimulus to help students identify these patterns, focusing on inquiry and analysis of scientific data and skills required for technical writing. Furthermore, the article illustrates those other potential applications of organizational patterns using the infographic could extend to interdisciplinary content (that is, Food Anthropology), which facilitates the development of cultural competency and sensitivity in food systems. Additionally, the article provides sample activities for teachers to use in their classrooms. To summarize, organizational patterns can serve as an effective teaching strategy to enhance students’ writing skills across Food Science and related disciplines.
Green skills need to be developed in vocational education for sustainable future. However, the vocational high school curriculum of agricultural food processing technology in Indonesia does not explicitly state the development of green skills. Teaching materials, such as module are needed to develop vocational students' green skills. This study aimed to develop green skills module for meat processing technology at vocational high schools. Development of this module used the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (ADDIE) model. The contents for a green skills module were developed based on a need analysis for the elements of green skills that must be developed in vocational high schools, curriculum and a literature review analysis related to sustainability in meat processing technology. The module was designed using a scientific approach to strengthen active student learning as per the 2013 curriculum policy for vocational high schools in Indonesia. The developed module was sent to the four selected experts for validating. It gained score of 88.56% in material aspect about meat processing technology by the material experts and 89.18% in media aspects by the media experts. These scores mean that the module was categorized as very feasible. Based on the pre-test and post-test of students' green skills with this module, the calculation of n-gain test was 0.4 which means moderate category. The findings of this study imply that the module can be used in learning to improve student's green skills. This study may be adapted for the development of other subject modules in vocational schools.
I'm not sure how many of you are interested in Greek mythology. Truth be told, in general, I was not a big fan. No reason really, I just never got into it. That is, until I was introduced11 I was introduced to Kairos and the tale he has to tell at a Habitudes Intensive Workshop taught by Tim Elmore in January 2019, at Growing Leaders (https://growingleaders.com), Atlanta, GA. The Opportunity Statue is in The Art of Leading Yourself Habituates book, image 10 (Elmore, 2018) to Kairos. Let me explain. Kairos (also called Caerus) was the Greek god or personified spirit of opportunity and the youngest of the divine sons of Zeus. The original bronze allegoric statue of Kairos was made by Lysippos22 The original statue of Kairos made by Lysippos is lost, but there is an attic sarcophagus fragment depicting Kairos the god of opportunity at the Museum of Antiquities in Turin, Italy, a picture of which can be viewed at Antiquities Exhibits (n.d.). and stood outside his home in the Agora of Hellenistic Sikyon (Figure 1). Lysippos depicted Kairos as a young man with winged feet, a large lock of hair on the front of his head, and no hair at all in the back. That's right, he's complete bald in the back. “What is thy name?” “My name is Opportunity.” “Why do you have wings on your feet?” “That I will be able to fly efficiently.” “How come you have such a big forelock?” “That men will apprehend me when I arrive.” “Can you tell me why you're bald in the back?” “That no one will be able to catch me as I pass.” As is clear from the excerpt from the inscription beneath the statue, opportunity is something that you must grab hold of when it arrives, but you will not be able to catch hold of it after it passes. I will close with one of my favorite quotes about opportunity and a story to go along with it. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” -Thomas A. Edison A number of years ago, I was privileged to get involved, at just the right time, with some amazing faculty members from a variety of universities who had a passion and a vision for the future of food science education. It was hard work, but it was so very worth it. Born of those efforts were the Education Division44 The petition to form the Education Division was submitted to IFT on February 27, 1995, by Dr. Faye Dong, from University of Washington, Seattle, WA at that time, who later became the Head of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (currently Education, Extension, and Outreach Division) and the Journal of Food Science Education55 Dr. Wayne Iwaoka in his first editorial acknowledges the following key individuals in the IFT Education Division for their efforts in the creation of JFSE: Darrell Donahue, Alfred Bushway, Jim Bird, and Denise Skonberg from the University of Maine; Grady Chism from Ohio State University; Clark Brekke from University of Tennessee; Shelly Schmidt and Kris Campbell from the University of Illinois; Rich Hartel from the University of Wisconsin; Faye Dong from the University of Washington; Paul Singh from the University of California, Davis; Carolyn Fisher from McCormick and Co.; and Albert McGill from Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Thank you for your vision and perseverance that made JFSE a reality. . I encourage you to grab hold of the opportunity to be a part of the future of Food Science Education. Don't let it pass you by. It has been my great pleasure and honor to serve as the third Scientific Editor of the Journal of Food Science Education from 2014 to 2021, preceeded by two wonderful colleagues and friends – Dr. Wayne Iwaoka, emeritus professor at the University of Hawaii, the inaugural Scientific Editor from 2000 to 2005, followed by Dr. Grady Chism, emeritus professor at the Ohio State University, the second Scientific Editor from 2006 to 2013. Final Course Project (FCP) Information - FSHN 101 The Science of Food, Fall 2021 (See supplemental file “JFSE-v20i1-Schmidt editorial supplemental-Final Course Project.pdf”) Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.
A situated learning exercise was employed to teach food safety content in agribusiness management classes at Renmin University in China. Pedagogical objectives included proficiency at identification and assessment of food safety risk factors, source causation factors, and risk mitigation strategies. Identified themes emerging from student ex-post questionnaire responses suggest these objectives were successfully met as students reflected on the process of observing and participating in street food markets and their instinctive reaction to stimuli encountered (affective interpretation), resulting changes in their attitudes and perceptions (cognitive response), and changes in behaviors. Additional learning objectives were defined as an outcome of the learning exercise including identifying and assessing the impact of stimuli and the resulting emotions on attitudes and perceptions; attributing source of food safety concerns to various actors and processes in street food markets; and identifying potential solutions to the environments and practices that generate food safety concerns.
There is a growing body of research that suggests better course outcomes for instructors that incorporate active learning into their curriculum. Laboratory exercises can be used to promote active learning. The objective of this study was to develop and assess the efficacy of a gluten-free bread laboratory exercise for an undergraduate course (Fundamentals of Food Processing). Students enrolled in the course worked in groups to prepare four treatments: 100% white whole grain sorghum as control (C), 15% burgundy waxy sorghum (15W), 25% burgundy waxy sorghum (25W), and 35% burgundy waxy sorghum (35W) in a gluten-free bread formulation. Students evaluated physical properties (yield, loaf height, color, water activity) using analytical measurements, and organoleptic properties (appearance, color, texture, flavor, and overall acceptability) via sensory analysis on a hedonic scale. Students wrote a scientific report to communicate the results. At the completion of the lab, students answered survey questions (n = 53 or 85% of the class) to self-evaluate their understanding of gluten-free bread properties, research and writing skills, and food processing knowledge. Sixty percent or more of the students said that the exercise improved their understanding of the physical and sensory properties of gluten-free bread. Over 68% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the exercise reinforced their research and writing skills. Over 75% of respondents felt the exercise improved their food processing knowledge. Overall, the results of the survey indicated that the active lab exercise was effective in teaching the desired learning outcomes.
In STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses, undergraduate laboratory classes are vital for students to develop competencies such as critical observation, collaboration, critical thinking, technical, and problem-solving skills. Thus, for students to successfully acquire these competencies, preparation for laboratory classes is essential. This study aimed to explore the students' performance and perceptions of online pre-laboratory videos and quizzes in undergraduate food science and technology. Quantitative data on student usage statistics of the videos, student performance in online quizzes and practical reports scores and student perceptions were analysed to provide a detailed perspective of the course. The students' performance was above 60% in all pre-lab quizzes for both the 2018 and 2019 cohorts. The average pre-lab video views were higher in the 2019 cohorts compared to the 2018 cohort. The majority of the students felt that the topics were well explained in the videos (M = 4.25 +/- 0.84) and it was easy to learn from the videos (M = 4.31 +/- 0.76). In terms of students perceptions, a strong positive correlations were found between course organisation and motivation and self-efficacy (r = 0.86, p < 0.05); course engagement and motivation and self-efficacy (r = 0.82, p < 0.05). The strongest positive correlation was between course organisation and online engagement (r = 0.95, p < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that the introduction of multimodal/digital preparation resources (pre-lab videos and online quizzes) was positively received and benefited the students. Students have engaged enthusiastically with these resources and completed the majority of the tasks set. These findings will further expand research directed towards student perception of the lab experience and aid in the adaptation of food science and technology curriculums to accommodate both student and university needs.
It has been well documented that for many students science is difficult to learn. Thus, as a food chemistry teacher, it has been my mission to continually search for and implement better ways to help my students learn chemistry. One strategy for improved learning, based on Johnstone's Triangle, that has been shown to be exceedingly effective, is to intentionally and explicitly provide students with opportunities to see and experience chemistry at the macroscopic level (things they can observe), so that they can make a more meaningful and lasting connection to the molecular level (things they cannot directly observe). Thus, the focus of this article is to share with you six demonstrations and one assignment that help make chemistry visible to students, providing them with a macromolecular manifestation of a molecular level property or event. Featured demonstrations are grouped into two categories: The Properties of Water Demonstrations (Water's #1 Superpower: Hydrogen Bonding) and The Phase Transitions of Water Demonstrations (Water's #2 Superpower: Shapeshifting). The assignment is modeled after the popular Unwrapped TV series.
A broad range of approaches to learning such as traditional lectures, laboratory learning, online learning, and active learning are used in higher education settings. Specifically, in the field of science and technology, laboratory learning is crucial and a form of active learning. The objective of this study was to examine the use of these four different learning approaches in a third-year, undergraduate Food Science and Technology subject to facilitate learning, where previously only traditional lectures and laboratory learning had been used. Two new learning approaches, online learning and active learning in class, were incorporated, replacing two-thirds of the traditional lectures. Student perspectives and preference to these four learning approaches were recorded using an online survey. Hands-on laboratory classes were selected by the majority of students as the most effective way they learned, and also their most preferred learning approach. Majority of the students also found that the use of an educational technology, a polling tool contributed to their active learning in class. Finally, the intended learning outcome of an activity should be carefully considered when applying a learning approach to facilitate learning.
