Beth Young, Instructor in Food and Nutrition, combined USI athletics with telehealth technology to hit a home run for her senior dietetics students.
She partnered with the USI Softball team so students in NUTR 481 (Nutritional Education, Counseling and Theory) could counsel real clients on a variety of nutrition-related topics. It was a win-win for the athletes, too, as they were able to receive one-on-one counseling to work on individual nutrition goals.
“Originally these counseling sessions would have been completed on campus in a mixture of in-person counseling and telehealth sessions,” said Young. “Given the campus closure and social distancing guidelines that were put in place, I elected to move 100% of the counseling sessions to telehealth, conducting all sessions virtually using the software Healthie. This software allows me to still be able to view and listen to the counseling sessions in real time, which allows me to grade and critique my students.”
Young said the telehealth software has both a desktop and mobile app that the counselor and client can use, allowing for virtual meetings, chat messaging, and tracking and logging food and exercise. The student counselors can complete electronic charting within the Healthie software as well.
Young is utilizing telehealth to assist 2019 graduates from the program. “A few of our recent dietetic graduates that are currently completing dietetic internships (at a variety of locations throughout the country) were removed from clinical rotations and are in need of alternative opportunities to complete the required clinical hours,” she said. “I reached out to the network of registered dietitians that utilize Healthie in their private practices and was able to secure some interim preceptors for these interns. The interns will be able to obtain clinical hours through telehealth counseling services.”
Photo Caption: Instructor Beth Young, upper right, on a Zoom nutrition counseling call with Taylor Kollak, senior dietetics major (on the bottom of the screen) and her client, Jordan Rager, nursing major, who is a member of the USI softball team.
Food Science at Home
Elizabeth Ramos, Instructor in Food and Nutrition, has had an interesting pivot with her NUTR 384 Food Science class. Dietetics majors at USI are required to take this course to learn the chemical and physical properties of the components of food. When the decision was made to move all learning online, Ramos quickly recorded lectures and three experiments for her students to view, with instructions for them to create their self-directed lab projects at home.
“When I heard that USI was going remote for the remainder of the semester my first thought was, 'How will Food Science work?'” said Casey Hand, a junior dietetics major from Evansville. “Throughout the entire semester, we have been planning and preparing for individual self-directed lab experiments that we developed ourselves and would be executing in the lab. However, now that we are self-isolating at home, we still had to complete the project for the course requirements, but it was going to look a little different.”
For her experiment, Hand prepared two batches of chocolate chip cookies: one batch with granulated sugar and one batch with honey. She identified and compare differences in objective measurements and organoleptic properties between cookies made with granulated sugar (sucrose) and honey (fructose).
For the objective evaluation, she measured and compared the diameter and height of each cookie sample to determine a difference in spreading related to the type of sweetener used. She originally planned to ask 10 people to serve as judges of the two samples, rating the cookies by taste, color, texture and aroma.
“This is where my biggest challenge is presented, as I did not easily have access to 10 people, which is a well-balanced sample of judges to complete a sensory evaluation,” said Hand. “My revised plan was to reduce the number of judges, and by practicing safe social distancing, deliver cookies to the doorstep of some of my family and friends – with instructions and scorecard included – and then have them report their results to me by sending me a picture of their completed scorecards.”
Photo Captions: Above, Casey Hand and her Food Science lab at home.
At left, Elizabeth Ramos filmed an experiment making cottage cheese as part of her lecture for her online Food Science class. Her students are completing their own lab projects at their homes.
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