Progress 03/01/24 to 02/28/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Undergraduate students and instructors in food science. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One graduate student and one undergraduate student are involved in the project on the course redesign. The students better understand AI technology during the course redesign process and experience the usefulness and limitations of AI tools. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We are in the early stage of the project for data collection. There is no result dissemination yet. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In year 2, we expect to complete the course redesign of FDSC 341/541 Food Engineering and have full implementation in fall 2025. We will implement the AI-supported strategy in the other two courses, FDSC 100 Introduction to Food Science and FDSC 490 Food Product Development. Student surveys and focus groups will be conducted. We will further refine the course materials and implementation plans.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Our year 1 project was kicked off in March 2024 by confirming the project responsibilities of investigators/instructors. We worked with the project evaluator in developing evaluation protocols with focus group and survey questions developed and IRB approved. Our major activity focused on developing an AI-supported roleplay learning strategy, creating instructional materials for the major food engineering course FDSC 341/541 Food Engineering, and introducing AI application examples in the FDSC 490 Food Product Development course. We have identified learning objectives that can be achieved through the AI-supported learning strategy and that might help students to be successful in working in an environment with rapid technology upgrades, including: (1) Enhance knowledge acquisition and understanding of new engineering concepts through interaction with AI as a consultant; (2) Develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills through peer critique of solutions with AI; (3) Improve design skills and innovation and demonstrate leadership and communication skills through supervision and review of AI-generated products; (4) Encourage collaboration and teamwork among students through AI-assisted learning experiences. To support these AI-related learning objectives, we focused on redesigning the Heat Transfer Module in the food engineering course with the following activities performed: We identified ChatGPT as the major implementation AI tool for this course. By importing the book chapters into ChatGPT, we developed a custom AI tutor that the FDSC 341 Food Engineering students can specifically use. We revised the Heat Transfer module lecture slides to be self-guided learning materials and addeddetailed explanations of engineering concepts, definitions, and application examples. We also added example AI prompts that students can use to consult AI to acquire knowledge about engineering concepts and applications. We modified some example problems as AI-guided examples. By showing the AI solutions, we allowed the students to critique the AI solutions for problem-solving and critical thinking development. We tested this so-far modified heat transfer module in the 2024 fall semester food engineering course. We also conducted a student survey and focus group to collect students' feedback on the revised teaching activities. Based on students' feedback, we are further refining the heat transfer module materials and revising the other three modules of the food engineering course. In addition to the revision mentioned above, we are developing more practice problems with AI solutions for critiques. We are also developing three team projects that will allow the students to work as a team and use AI tools as assistants to solve comprehensive design problems. This new activity will support our identified learning objectives 3 and 4. In addition to the major activity focused on the FDSC 341/541 Food Engineering course, we demonstrated the potential use of AI tools in the FDSC 490 Food Product Development class to inspire the students in their capstone project. During students' updates on their product development, they have been actively using AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) to prepare food recipes. This course is still ongoing.

Publications