Greta McNeil

In our CTE program, we utilize Google and exchange information with students through that platform. We also encourage students to use the Internet to their advantage when they're looking for recipe ideas or doing research for a project. We encourage students to use AI minimally and we are vigilant about plagiarism. Computers have been integrated into education for many years, and it is a far departure from when I was growing up and going to school. I continue to learn more about computer literacy myself now that I've been in a teaching position for 4 years since leaving industry kitchens.

In the Baking & Pastry course I teach, I think one way to encourage students to be lifelong learners is to observe different preparation and baking techniques and question or observe how they apply to more than one particular item or baked good. The principles of baking are not overly complex but they apply to so many different items, and I always encourage students to think about where they might have used a particular technique and observe how it can be used in many applications. Additionally, I constantly reiterate the functions of various ingredients and I encourage students to remember… >>>

We do teamwork every single day in our program, so we are always practicing collaborating, communicating and problem solving. This helps students learn how to work alongside people they may not have thought to collaborate with, which is part of everyday life.

In the Baking & Pastry program I teach, I think an effective way to emphasize and implement the importance of strong writing is having students write out the same recipes and instructions for others to follow. We could then have students make the recipes according to the written directions and then compare the differences in the outcome of each recipe. This would exemplify how word choice, grammar and sentence structure affects comprehension and understanding.

I teach the Baking & Pastry portion of our Culinary Arts program, and I think one way to implement or encourage creativity while also providing guidance to reach a competency or objective is to give students a basic recipe but then let them make the recipe according to their individual preferences for flavors. This combines emphasizing the standard techniques for mixing and baking methods while also allowing personalized variations on items. This requires both creativity and thinking beyond typical flavor combinations and trying something different.