Source: DELAWARE STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
ENHANCING AND ENRICHING THE DSU DIDACTIC PROGRAM IN DIETETICS
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0223033
Grant No.
2010-38821-21455
Cumulative Award Amt.
$149,253.00
Proposal No.
2010-02251
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2010
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2013
Grant Year
2010
Program Code
[EP]- Teaching Project
Recipient Organization
DELAWARE STATE UNIVERSITY
1200 NORTH DUPONT HIGHWAY
DOVER,DE 19901
Performing Department
HUMAN ECOLOGY
Non Technical Summary
The goal of this proposal is to enhance the DSU Didactic Program in Dietetics (DPD) by accomplishing three objectives: 1) to provide more experiential learning opportunities; 2) to provide more research opportunities; and 3) to provide more field experience opportunities for undergraduate students. To accomplish these objectives, we will provide tuition and a graduate assistanceship for a person with the goal of both enhancing our new graduate program in FCS education and providing needed assistance in building innovative learning and field experiences for our undergraduates. We will build on a nascent relationship with Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center to provide opportunities for our students in human obesity research. We will also update our student computer lab, provide professional development opportunities for faculty wishing to update their teaching skills and purchase materials to allow us to include more hands on opportunities in learning for our students. The DPD aims to prepare students to enter the field of dietetics by providing the necessary course work.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
90360993020100%
Knowledge Area
903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
Objective 1: Provide more experiential learning opportunities to students in the Medical Nutrition Therapy, Introductory Nutrition, Advanced Nutrition, research Methods, Nutrition Education and Counseling and Principles and analysis of Food Preparation courses. Objective 2: Provide more research opportunities to students on campus and outside of the university. Objective 3: Provide a variety of career experience in the Field Experience Course.
Project Methods
Objective 1 - A graduate student in the nascent Family and Consumer Science education Masters degree program will be hired to interview teaching faculty to determine the nutrition concepts in each of their course which students find particularly difficult. A list of these topics will be assembled and, working with the faculty and students, the graduate student will devise an experiential method to teach one or two concepts in each course. Practical explanations of the concepts will be explored and either a guest speaker, a particularly helpful video or creative method of involving the students will be employed to elucidate the concept. Videos related to various dietetics topics will be purchased and reviewed for quality of explanation of concepts and applicability to topics. Experiments and other hands on activities will be added to each class where possible. Across the curriculum, one or two experiential activities will be added to each class. The process will be repeated each semester for two years until each course has four or five activities to elucidate particularly troubling concepts. An external evaluator will be consulted to develop best methods to evaluate the effectiveness of activities. Another way to incorporate experiential activities into the curriculum is to introduce simple kits to teach sophisticated concepts. Dr. Susan Ettinger, a DPD faculty member at Hunter College in New York, has agreed to act as a consultant for the introduction of non-laboratory experiments using Bio-rad kits into our Introductory Nutrition, Advanced Nutrition, Nutritional Biochemistry, and Medical Nutrition therapy courses. She will visit DSU campus for two days for the first two years to train interested faculty in the use of the kits and explain the lab experiments. Web-based instruction and library instruction will also be encouraged as part of the experiential education. Objective 2: To accomplish this objective, one or two DSU researchers, chosen for their ability to make complex simple, will be invited to speak, where relevant, in the targeted courses. Two field trips each semester to research facilities will allow students to gain more comfort with research laboratories. A special relationship will be forged with Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. At least one visit each year will be to that facility. In addition, we will explore a way to provide at least one student each summer with a stipend to conduct a research project of interest to the student. Students will be encouraged and guided in the preparation of an abstract to submit to DSU Honors Day. We will build on that success in order to encourage the most competent student(s) to prepare a poster for a regional or national meeting. Objective 3: The graduate student will work with the PI to expand the current list practitioners willing to have one or more students shadow them for a few hours each year. The field experience requirements are that students will get 35 hrs of experience in the three major areas of dietetics practice - food service, community nutrition and clinical.

Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: A graduate student was hired to help with the lab courses and act as co-advisor of the Food and Nutrition Club. DPD Director updated skills - learned about Individualized Supervised Practice Pathway (ISPP) as an alternative for DPD graduates who do not get matched for Dietetic Internship. Also honed skills to prepare Program Assessment Report (PAR) for Commission on Accreditation of Dietetics Education (CADE). Project Director met with Library Contact for College of Agriculture and Related Sciences. We discussed resources that would be valuable for DPD. One student was guided in a research project and presented at Honors Day and at Association of Research Directors meeting in Atlanta, GA in April, 2011. Project Director met with Advisory Committee for Didactic Program to discuss further possibilities for the enhancement of the program. Two registered dietitians on the committee agreed to speak to several classes. We now have stronger relationships with Bay Health Hospital in Dover and the Delaware WIC program. In addition, one of our adjunct faculty works as a consulting clinical Dietitian in several Delaware health care facilities and has provided wonderful opportunities for site visits for our students. PARTICIPANTS: One of our students who worked on the project from Fall, 2010 through Spring, 2011, assisting in the growth of activities for the Food and Nutrition Club and building commaraderie among the students. In addition, after she graduated, she helped during the summer with the monumental task of cleaning, sorting and inventorying the items in the Foods Laboratory and then packed everything up for the move to the new building. Her help in this was invaluable. Another student was paid to do the research project for Honors Day. She asked the question, "Is it possible for a student at DSU to eat consistently healthful meals and snacks on campus" She inventoried vending machines and campus eateries, interviewed campus dining staff, developed a questionnaire to survey students and analyzed the data and developed a presentation. The project is paying the tuition for two graduate students in Food Science. One is being paid a stipend in addition to tuition and is helping with the Food and Nutrition Club and other projects essential for the day to day operation of the Didactic Program. TARGET AUDIENCES: Students are the target audience for this project. They are enhancing their knowledge due to more opportunities for experiential learning. We were able to use some of the funds from the project to hire a senior to act as a tutor for some of the underclassmen who were struggling with Introduction to Nutrition. The students are just beginning to have access to more opportunities for clinical experiences in the field. We expect good things in the coming year. However the project was able to assist in providing lab coats and other resources for students in the Quantity Foods Management course so they were able to spend up to 15 hours in institutional food service settings. They reported a large gain in understanding of the food service industry. The project also paid for them to attend a Food Show in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, hosted by some of the largest food service purveyors. This experience was invaluable for them. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: One modification is that we have not yet begun to recruit graduate students for the Graduate Program in Family and Consumer Science Education. This project was to pay for the tuition and stipend for a student in this program. However, we have some very deserving students in Food Science and their work can also be of great value to the DPD program, so we are happy to be able to support them.

Impacts
Faculty are including more experiential activities in their courses. In the Analysis of Food Preparation course, just the suggestion of having access to a student assistant to help with food preparation enhanced the food preparation experiences for the students. These experiences were not feasible in earlier semesters. In the Research Methods course, more emphasis was placed on conducting an actual research project and presenting it to the class. In Medical Nutrition Therapy, students received more practice time on performing nutrition assessments and writing case studies. They practiced nutrition counseling skills with each other. In addition, they attended the Diabetes Expo that was held in Dover in November, to see the wealth of diabetes information available for those who suffer from or care for those who suffer from diabetes. Students in Community Nutrition are spending 10 hours during the semester gleaning information from a community agency and producing a very extensive team report to the class. Experiential activities are definitely on the increase as a result of this grant. This year we have two students who are preparing their packets to apply for dietetic internships. The project was able to provide them with several otherwise cost-prohibitive materials to help them design excellent packets. We will know the outcome of their work in April, 2012. In addition, we are working with more of our graduates to encourage them to either take the Registration Exam for Registered Dietetic Technicians or apply for graduate school and/or Dietetic Internships. Funds provided through this grant enabled us to buy costly Menu analysis software and also to purchase, with help from the Dean, updated computers so that additional software can be placed on them. We were very fortunate that the Dean was able to allocate Facilities money for our Department. Along with our new building, we were able to use money from the present grant to purchase materials to upgrade the Foods Laboratory.

Publications

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