Journal of Food Science Education最新文献

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 (3^rd) 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 loo

Food analysis courses introduce the theory and application of analytical procedures to characterize foods and their ingredients. Students learn the principles behind analytical techniques commonly used to analyze foods in the industry and evaluate their suitability for the analysis of specific food products. Food analysis courses have traditionally been taught in a lecture-based format. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of utilizing team-based learning (TBL), an established collaborative learning technique, in an undergraduate food analysis course to enhance student learning. Post-course student surveys, quizzes, and exam scores were used to assess the effectiveness of the TBL implementation. TBL uses pre-reading assignments, individual and team quizzes, and problem solving in teams to create an active learning environment in the classroom that increases student engagement and long-term learning. The results from surveys, quizzes, and exam scores from the Food Analysis course show a successful implementation in the classroom: no significant difference in the average midterm exam scores was observed between the TBL and lecture formats (p ≤ 0.05), indicating that TBL maintained performance on midterm exams, students reported being engaged in the course, and the deliberately designed group work encouraged students to prepare for class and participate in the activities. The students also reported that they were able to recall information better, and that the effectiveness of TBL activities helped them strengthen concepts. In conclusion, the results suggest that TBL is beneficial for students in food analysis, and that implementation in additional food science courses could help improve student learning.

Three-dimensional (3D) food printing is a new technology that can be used to produce personalized and customized food products. However, very little research has been completed on how 3D food printers could be used as educational tools. As such, the objective of this study was to evaluate how teachers (n = 6), dietitians (n = 6), and nutrition students (n = 11) envision the use of 3D food printers when disseminating information about food and nutrition. Focus groups were conducted with teachers, dietitians, and nutrition students. Initially, the participants were introduced to the concept of 3D food printing and then they were asked how they could use a 3D food printer in their teachings. The participants did not feel that a 3D food printer would enhance their teaching and instead felt it could confuse or frighten people. Also, all of the participants were worried about learning how to 3D print foods. The participants did state that people would be interested in watching a 3D food printer. Furthermore, the teachers and nutrition students indicated they thought a demonstration of a 3D food printer would lead to more interest in food and nutrition. Additionally, they thought a 3D food printer could be used to create visually appealing foods. Overall, until 3D food printers are found in residential and commercial kitchens, the participants did not think it would enhance their teachings; however, they did indicate that 3D food printing demonstrations could lead to students being interested in the food and nutrition fields.

Connecting the public to concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an essential for technological advancement and inspiring future scientists, impacting both the communicator and the audience's understanding of scientific topics. Without proper communication of scientific knowledge, acceptance and implementation of new technologies can be hindered. Additionally, increasing public awareness about current scientific issues through STEM engagement permits more informed policy and consumer choices, especially in the field of food science where many new food technologies are met with initial resistance by the consuming public. Here, we describe an event that introduced topics in food science to the nonexpert public, including K-8th grade participants and their adult caregivers in an informal learning environment. This program consists of six activities that collectively introduce three areas in food science: food chemistry, food microbiology, and process engineering. Protocols are provided for each activity including a materials list (with the option to scale up or down according to event duration, event space allowances, and number of participants), learning objectives and discussion points that are adaptable to different age groups, event spaces, or budgets. Each activity has a participatory component to ensure both audience member and instructor engagement. A program designed for food science communication empowers young scientific minds to better understand complex scientific topics and could inspire them to envision a possible career in STEM fields, with the additional benefit of providing graduate students an exciting medium through which they may practice their science communication skills, potentially benefiting not only their personal academic and professional skills but also broader societal needs.

It began in 1869, and today we have 118 elements listed in the Periodic table, thanks to Mendeleev's work. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are elements presented in many organic compounds. Some of them can exhibit photophysical and photochemical properties. Herein, we proposed an easy to make an experiment in chemistry classes to connect both subjects, periodic table and photochemistry, through periodic tables made of fluorescent jellies. A sheet of PET-G was heated and put over the periodic table mold made in a 3D-printing to produce the form used in this work. Quinine and vitamin B2, from tonic water and vitamin supplement, respectively, were the fluorescent compounds selected to be in the gelification process to give the jelly fluorescence. The light source was a black light lamp. This work allowed for the discussion of photophysics and photochemistry concepts, 3D-printing process, gelification, and the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements—IYPT2019—with undergraduate students without the use of expensive reagents or equipment.

In a Food Processing–Unit Operations course, students learn the basic equipment that comprises unit operations and techniques commonly used in the food industry to prepare, process, and preserve a variety of food products. Due to the complexity of these operations, students frequently struggle with applying food processing principles to predict how unit operations influence the physical, biochemical, sensory, and nutritional properties of foods. This study is designed to evaluate how pre-class readings and in-class group activities improve the students’ learning in a Food Processing course. The survey after the exams shows that 48 and 60% of students agree that reading assignments and in-class group activities help them understand the course material better, respectively. The mean value of exam scores shows that the students in the intervention section (Spring 2018) had significantly higher scores (88.4%) than that of the two previous sections without intervention (77.6%, Spring 2016 and 82.8%, Spring 2017) (P < .05). It is concluded that using a flipped class element like providing reading assignments and quizzes before the lecture can be an effective preparation technique for students as well as providing the instructors with critical insight into the students’ level of understanding before the lecture. This allows the instructor to focus time spent in class on areas in which students struggle the most.

The pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in early 2020 has led to tremendous disruptions in education systems worldwide, including the closure of majority of education institutions and the shifting from face-to-face learning toward remote learning. More than 70% of the world's student population were affected by such a disruptive event, inclusive of undergraduate students in their final year preparing their research project. Senior students in Food Science generally perform laboratory-oriented research project, which can be problematic due to the closure of laboratories and universities. I wrote this article to give an insight into conducting final year research projects from home amidst the COVID-19 crisis based on my personal experience as a research supervisor. The research methods discussed include literature review, analysis of secondary data, survey research, simple food processing, remote sensory evaluation, and glycemic index analysis. Regardless of the type of research chosen, consistent guidance and support from a research supervisor toward the student, both academic and moral, appears to be a fundamental factor determining the success of the student in completing his/her final research project, particularly during these difficult times.