Implementing experiential learning activities in a large enrollment introductory food science and human nutrition course

Experiential learning activities are often viewed as impractical, and potentially unfeasible, instructional tools to employ in a large class. Research has shown, though, that the metacognitive skills that students utilize while participating in experiential learning activities enable students to assess their true level of understanding and mastery for the subject matter. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether students in a large (~660 person) Introduction to Food Science and Human Nutrition (FSHN 101) course improved their understanding of dietary intake and food safety after participating in two experiential learning activities developed for these course topics. The first activity, completed during class, asked students to select one day???s worth of food from a list of menu choices, calculate the nutritional value of their food choices, and then compare their daily nutritional intake to the dietary reference intakes for their gender, age category and health status. The second activity, completed via the course website, asked students to complete one food safety survey prior to the commencement of the course???s food microbiology section to assess the students' personal food safety behaviors and a second survey upon completion of the section to assess students' knowledge of recommended food safety practices. Students were asked to evaluate both the cognitive and affective aspects of the experiential learning activities by completing a reflective questionnaire after participating in each activity. Overall, students' responses revealed that the activities were effective learning tools and that the students liked engaging with the material on a personal application level. A Poster version of this article can be found in the IDEALS SoTL Presentations and Posters folder.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Complex learning communities

A new breed of learning community which is driven by the need to generate learning, creativity and economic capacity is emerging as a result of the demands of the Information Society. Radical heterogeneity and multiple drivers make these learning communities significantly different from previously identified learning communities such as corporate Communities of Practice or Virtual Learning Communities. If full benefit is to be realised from such Complex Learning Communities (CLCs), then better understanding of their complex behaviour and methods of maximising their effectiveness are required. This short paper presents an overview of CLCs and reports on the development of a research agenda designed to address the identified gaps in knowledge

Benefits of agroforestry systems for land equivalent ratio - case studies in Brandenburg and Lower Saxony, Germany

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Justice and the fetus: rawls, children, and abortion

In a footnote to the first edition of Political Liberalism, John Rawls introduced an example of how public reason could deal with controversial issues. He intended this example to show that his system of political liberalism could deal with such problems by considering only political values, without the introduction of comprehensive moral doctrines. Unfortunately, Rawls chose “the troubled question of abortion” as the issue that would illustrate this. In the case of abortion, Rawls argued, “the equality of women as equal citizens” overrides both “the ordered reproduction of political society over time” and also “the due respect for human life.” It seems fair to say that this was not the best choice of example and also that Rawls did not argue for his example particularly well: a whole subset of the Rawlsian literature concerns this question alone

Ethics, professionalism and fitness to practise: three concepts, not one

The GDC's recent third interim edition of The first five years places renewed emphasis on the place of professionalism in the undergraduate dental curriculum. This paper provides a brief analysis of the concepts of ethics, professionalism and fitness to practise, and an examination of the GDC's First five years and Standards for dental professionals guidance, as well as providing an insight into the innovative ethics strand of the BDS course at the University of Glasgow. It emerges that GDC guidance is flawed inasmuch as it advocates a virtue-based approach to ethics and professionalism, and fails to distinguish clearly between these two concepts