Journal of Food Science Education最新文献

The Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence aim to develop novel learning methods to educate and train the future public health workforce to investigate foodborne outbreaks. The Foodborne Outbreak Challenge (FOC) was a one-day event hosted by the Colorado Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the Colorado School of Public Health. The FOC incorporated experiential, problem-based, and interdisciplinary pedagogies from case studies, simulation exercises, and public health case competitions, to deliver a novel learning experience that met the training needs of a multidisciplinary foodborne outbreak response team with diverse skills sets. The event received positive feedback, and participants demonstrated knowledge gain. Event materials are available for other institutions to use.

During these last few months, I have been thinking a great deal about creating community in both the undergraduate and graduate level courses I teach. In my January 2018 editorial (Schmidt, 2018), I focused on building community in the classroom based on the four key motivational conditions for adult learning outlined in the work of Dr. Raymond Wlodkowski – establish inclusion, develop positive attitudes, enhance personal meaning, and engender competence. In this editorial, I would like to focus on the idea of intentionally building a scientific community in the classroom. The underlying impetus for this idea comes from the book Making Scientists (Light & Micari, 2013). I recently ran across the Making Scientists book on the desk of a colleague I was visiting. The intriguing nature of the title, as well as a quick look through the book, caused me to quickly purchase a copy of my own; and I must say, it was well worth it!

Based on their own transformative experiences, Light & Micari contend that the learning environment is just as critical to academic success in the sciences as a person's individual ability. As such, the book identifies and discusses six learning principles that characterize the environment in which the best science is conducted: 1) Learning deeply; 2) Engaging problems; 3) Connecting peers; 4) Mentoring learning; 5) Creating community; and 6) Doing research. Collectively, these six principles provide a practical framework for designing and implementing educational practices and innovations that are consistent with the actual practice of science. Instead of just the simple acquisition of facts about science, the focus of these principles is making scientists. As described by Light and Micari (2013), the best science learning “engages students with science materials through cutting edge learning approaches within legitimate science communities (p. 14).” The main outcomes of these “cutting-edge”1 learning approaches are intended to be essentially the same for students as they are for their science professors and other practicing scientists – construction and discovery of ideas that are new, exciting, and meaningful. Though for students, the learning will seldom be truly original compared to the research scientist, “but the learning and personal construction of knowledge are nevertheless new, exciting, and deeply original for the student and his or her peer group (p. 14).”

Though it was just a few weeks before the Spring 2018 semester was going to begin, I decided to incorporate these six principles into the graduate level course I was about to teach, Food Science and Human Nutrition 595 Water Relations in Foods. As I worked to embrace and embed these principles into the fabric of the course, they became my own, so-to-speak. The more I learned, the more excited I became about making scientists! On the first day of class, I introduced the six learning p

Since formal education is guided through food-related curricula, there is a concern regarding to which extent food safety elements are supported in the current educational objectives presented in syllabi. The aim of this study was to analyze the existing food safety elements in the syllabi at the elementary (for students between 6 and 14 y of age) and upper-secondary level (food-related programs) of formal education (for students between 15 and 18 y of age). Analysis was done through predefined criteria, evaluating the educational objectives listed in available syllabi approved by the national government. The results revealed the elementary level as a good prestage for education at the next level concerning food safety elements. At the upper-secondary level, the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills related to food safety elements of interest are well supported. However, based on frequent errors made by professional food handlers reported in the literature, the role of food handlers and their food safety awareness should receive more attention in the syllabi. To support this and to overcome a lack of educational objectives identified, several actions are suggested. Based on methodological recommendations for the teacher in the syllabi, the importance of qualified teachers was once again confirmed. Vocational schools are and will remain an indispensable pillar in the education of future professional food handlers; however, teachers with sufficient knowledge and a positive attitude toward food safety seems to be, besides quality curricula, one of the important factors in achieving the proper attitudes of people required to implement food safety.

Assessment presents a perennial challenge for both faculty and their students. To excel on a test, students must engage in a series of complex cognitive tasks they rarely practice. To effectively measure student learning, faculty must design summative assessments to target specific knowledge and skill. Unfortunately, despite knowing and understanding the subject matter at a deep level, assessment design and test taking can go often awry for instructors and their students. It is curious that while assessment is one of the most dominant features of education at all levels, learners and their professors seldom receive direct instruction or training on research-based strategies that are proven to radically improve classroom testing. A consequence of the lack of adoption of research-based strategies for test taking and design is a misalignment between student learning and testing that has implications for the integrity of the educational process in our classrooms. The purpose of this essay is to address the misalignment between summative testing and learning and to offer recommendations for better teaching, learning, and testing. While we address classroom summative assessment only, the strategies we recommend are applicable across a variety of testing contexts, including high-stakes, standardized testing. In Part I, we analyze how testing and learning work, and offer retrieval-enhanced learning theory as a bridge to the gap in misalignment between learning and testing. In Part II, we offer four practical recommendations for introducing retrieval-enhanced learning in classroom teaching. We conclude with implications for practice when student learning and testing are aligned.

Effective test-taking requires effective learning, the encoding of content knowledge or procedural skill, and its requisite storage in long-term memory (Karpicke, 2016). It also involves successful retrieval and application of that knowledge and skill in a testing environment. Faculty construct tests as a means of evaluating students’ content knowledge, understanding, and procedural skill. However, tests also involve a series of cognitive tasks (see Table 1) that must proceed without a glitch for students to succeed on a test. Many of these tasks are unrelated to the depth of students’ subject-matter knowledge or expertise. For example, the amount of space available in a student's working memory is entirely separate from the amount, and depth of understanding, of content knowledge in their long-term memory. Unfortunately, most students do not practice with enough frequency the key cognitive tasks involved in testing during self-directed learning or study (Karpicke et al., 2009). Rather, students spend the majority of their time out of the classroom engaging in rehearsal (Bransford et al., 2000). Concomitantly, while active learning is becoming increasingly popular in higher education, classroom instruction still primarily features pa

The study investigated students’ perceptions and attitudes toward the use of ePortfolios for reflective practice as a learning and teaching strategy. A mixed-method approach was applied to the study in a first-year food science unit, at a regional Australian university. Data were generated via 3 sources, in order to provide the evidential basis for the investigation, including: a mixed method survey, access to student's exam results, and students’ ePortfolio reflections. The findings identified 3 key positive aspects. First, a variety of assessment methods was key to enhancing the overall learning of 1st-year food science students. Second, ePortfolio reflective writing can be a key aspect for improved student engagement. Finally, structured ePortfolio sessions can help food science students consolidate knowledge, while also allowing them to encounter new ideas related to food science theory and develop technical knowledge. However, technological issues with using an ePortoflio can cloud the value of the reflective task for some students. Recommendations are made for how to better support and implement reflective practice using ePortfolios to enhance the learning of food science students.

This research compares the industry readiness, product development skill level, and overall knowledge gains of students taking an undergraduate research course (treatment) to those who did not (control). This 2-semester Applied Interdisciplinary Product Development (AIPD) course for sophomores brought together interdisciplinary teams of food science, nutrition, and packaging science students in a hands-on setting to create healthy food products for children, complete with retail packaging. A Subject Knowledge Assessment (SKA) was used to evaluate the mean percent difference value (MPDV) of food science, nutrition, packaging science, and general product development knowledge gained through the course. SKA results indicated that the MPDV were significantly different (α = 0.05) between the treatment and comparison groups in the overall score and in every subject area score except packaging science. Data from an Exit Questionnaire (EQ) was used for evaluation of attitudes pertaining to product development knowledge and skills, department engagement, and pedagogy. EQ results indicated that mean scores between the treatment and comparison groups were significantly different (α = 0.05) in 7 of the 9 statements on product development knowledge and skills, both statements pertaining to pedagogy, and the statement pertaining to department engagement. Overall, the research project was considered a successful intervention for educating sophomores at the University. Overall, the research project was considered a successful intervention for educating sophomores in the Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science department at Clemson University. The student-lead teams were held to a greater degree of accountability for their success in terms of education gleaned and value of experience gained as metric for the University and other IFT Accredited programs.

There are a number of useful lesson plans available on the web for food science educational purposes. Two of the below mentioned sites, the ones from Utah and Illinois, offer a well-thought-out series of courses for food science instruction, primarily aimed at high school students. There are other lesson plans available. The following sites contain freely available food science related lesson plans for a variety of audiences. There are also sites that contain lesson plans available for a fee, but these have not been covered here.

https://www.isbe.net/Documents/fcs_guide.pdf

Contains a 160-page course packet divided into 7 units: new food products, lipids and proteins, food additives, food irradiation, food packaging, food biotechnology, and food poisoning.

http://extension.uga.edu/programs-services/science-behind-our-food.html

Funded by the National Science Foundation and administered by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of Georgia. This site has food-related lesson plans exploring biology, chemistry, environmental science, food science, physical science, physics, science-technology-society and other subjects.

https://www.schools.utah.gov/cte/facs

Well-developed lesson plans intended for the three courses: Food and Nutrition I, Food and Nutrition II, and Food and Science.

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/nutrition-and-food-science.cfm

This is a 3-course plan for grades 9–12 focusing on foodborne illness.

https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/curricula-and-lesson-plans

Contains 20 lesson plans for a variety of audiences.

https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/ToolsMaterials/ScienceandTheFoodSupply/default.htm

See: Allen, R. S. (2017). Food science education publications and websites. Journal of Food Science Education, 16, 41–44. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4329.12108 for extended description of these well-developed resources.)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/80924124526045886/

See: Allen, R. S. (2017). Food science education publications and websites. Journal of Food Science Education, 16, 102–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4329.12124 for extended description.