Food nutrition and hygiene course teaching reform

Shengjun Wu

【Abstract】Food nutrition and hygiene course is one of professional courses for undergraduate specialty of food science and engineering. In order to improve the teaching quality of food nutrition and hygiene courses and to cultivate high-quality food science and engineering professionals for the society， based on the teaching practice， this paper analyzed the status quo of food nutrition and hygiene course and the necessity of teach reform and explored how to improve the teaching quality of food nutrition and hygiene course from aspects of teaching contents， teaching methods and assessment methods.

【Keywords】Food nutrition and hygiene course; Teaching status quo; Teaching reform

【作者簡介】Shengjun Wu，College of Marine Life and Fisheries， Jiangsu Ocean University，Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology， Huaihai Institute of Technology，Jiangsu Marine Resources Development Research Institute。

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of Chinas economic construction， the living standards of residents have been greatly improved， and the relationship between food and hygiene is particularly important. In recent years， there have been some alarming changes in the health status of Chinese residents and the problems of high incidence and youthfulness of chronic diseases caused by food nutrition and hygiene problems are mainly caused by changes in peoples lifestyles， as well as the lack of food nutrition and health knowledge. Therefore， the national food science and engineering colleges and universities have taken “food nutrition and hygiene” as an important professional foundation course （Guo et al.， 2012; Qian et al.， 2013）. In order to improve the quality of teaching， we optimized the teaching content and improved the teaching methods and assessment methods to stimulate students interest in learning and subjective interaction.

2. The necessity of food nutrition and hygiene curriculum reform

“Food nutrition and hygiene” includes contents of two major disciplines， i.e. food nutrition and food hygiene. Food nutrition teaching tasks are to enable students to master the basic knowledge of nutrients， the nutritional value of various types of food， nutritional needs of different groups of people， nutrition and disease， nutritional balance and other basic theory and knowledge. Food hygiene teaching tasks are to enable students to understand the food pollution and its management control， food-borne diseases and their control， prevention of various types of food hygiene issues and other basic theory and knowledge. These two disciplines are closely linked to peoples daily lives. With the “food nutrition and hygiene” knowledge， students can improve their food professionalism and their overall quality for the needs of modern society. Therefore， how to reform the course of food nutrition and hygiene teaching and improve the quality of teaching the course are important issues of teachers in food and food science and engineering to think about.

3. Teaching status of food nutrition and hygiene course

（1） Teaching content. At present， most food nutrition and hygiene courses of food science and engineering are preventive medicine professional national planning teaching materials， which are too professional and too much medical knowledge for food professional students： there is too little knowledge related to food professional.

Food nutrition and hygiene course is generally offered in the third semester of next semester. The teaching contents of food nutrition and hygiene course are closely related with “microbiology”， “biochemistry”， “food chemistry”， “food science”， “food safety”， “food technology” and other courses， and therefore it is necessary to reform the teaching contents of food nutrition and hygiene course.

（2）. Teaching methods. Traditional education reduces the enthusiasm and initiative of students to learn， resulting in low interest in learning. Therefore， the reform of teaching methods to improve students interest and to play its subjective initiative is the focus of teaching reform.

（3） Assessment methods. In the past， examinations were often used in teaching： this approach is relatively simple， direct， and too single to a large extent and can not achieve the purpose of assessment. In addition， the traditional examination methods can not help students flexibly understand and use of knowledge and can not keep up with the new high-quality personnel training objectives. Therefore， to increase the intensity of assessment and focus on the quality and ability of students are also comprehensive keys to the current teaching reform.

4. Teaching Reform and Practice

（1） Reform of teaching contents. In the selection of materials， we choose the latest version and the most suitable teaching materials i.e. the teaching material of general higher education food professional “second five” plan， which was published before 2011 and is more suitable for food students. At the same time， according to the actual situation of the school organization of teaching content， after communication the teachers of “microbiology”， “biochemistry”， “food chemistry”， “food raw materials science”， “food safety” and “food technology” courses， the teaching contents were appropriately deleted or increased， highlighting the characteristics of food nutrition and hygiene.

（2） Reform of teaching methods. Food nutrition and hygiene course involve a number of abstract， theoretical content， and therefore if oral form is used in accordance with the past teaching， the students are difficult to understand， their learning interest is not high， and thus the teaching effect is not good. Combined with a variety of teaching methods， we improved the students interest in learning.

First of all， we played the advantages of multimedia teaching based on make full use of multimedia resources. For example， for the teaching of nutrient deficiency and excess caused by related diseases， we added some disease-related picture due to nutrients lack of or excessive to help the students understand the symptoms of malnutrition， but also to enable students to more deeply aware of the severity of malnutrition. Second， the discussion of teaching methods was adopted. In the classroom， we added food cases， which were closely related to life， resulting in students discussing and thinking about the reasons. In addition， we carried out professional ethics education to improve the professionalism of students.

（3） Reform of Examinations. In the assessment methods， we paid attention the students usual grades， weakened the final examination results and established full evaluation system by combining the final examination results with usual grades and discuss results， and as a result， students ‘subjective initiative increased and the students abilities of discovering problems， solving problems， collecting data and expressing language were cultivated， and teaching quality was improved.

5. Conclusions

In this study， we reformed the course of food nutrition and hygiene. The results show that this kind of reform has a positive effect， which not only aroused the students interest in learning， but also aroused the initiative and enthusiasm of learning. It also improved the quality of teaching and strengthened the emotional communication between teachers and students.

References：

[1]Qian， Q.Z.， X.K. Cao， Q. Wang， D. Ma and G.Y. Zheng. 2013. Nutrition and Food Hygiene Experimental Teaching Reform and Construction. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 226： 517-523.