Anthony,
I believe it is very beneficial for the students to view local health department inspections. The forms that the inspectors use really follow the format of what they are learning in class. Many times the students will have dined at one or more of the locations, so then they really pay attention!
Jae Gruber
I will often times during a lecture/demo purposely make mistakes, whether they be technical, grammatical, procedural, santitation infractions, etc, to gauge the level of concept grasping, and to re-inforce their knowledge of previous learnings from other coursework.......shows them that not only is everyone human, but that they should always be paying attention to the concepts/skills being introduced-they will need that skill anyways!
John,
I like the idea of the instructor purposely making mistakes - and those beyond just the cooking aspect of the demo! Recently I also having the students tell her the right steps for doing the demo, which was a creative approach to get students to study and review the material ahead of time, as well as retain the material.
Jae Gruber
Instead of repeating material that I know I have already taught the students in a previous lesson, I ask them questions so that they can relay the information to me. So if we already did the creaming method on cookies and now I am demoing it for a cake, they have to walk me through the process step by step. That way they begin to memorize the method and I can just point out the subtle differences.
I do the same thing, but instead of rotating through the list of names. I allow them to sign up if they want to be my assistant. No one gets extra credit for doing it, but I think it is valuable to teach them the importance of stepping up without being told to do so.
Amanda,
A sign up sheet is a very good idea. That way, no one feels like they have been put on the spot, or someone may want to assist with a demo on a perticular food or technique.
Jae Gruber
Nancy,
This is an excellent idea and also reinforces the need to firmly understand each competency as it will be used again, not only in the next class, but throughout their career.
Jae Gruber
I find that using the train the trainer method works well, I will give a demo and explain ojective of the day. After a short break I will have students break into teams and assign one student to perform the task as a trainer for that group and evaluate if they understood the task and what was demonstrated to them earlier.
Joseph,
That is a very original idea! How do the students respond to the task...both the trainer and those that are being evaluated by their peers?
Jae Gruber
When I lecture on sugars I will bring in samples of different types of sugar so students can see the difference between them they will also taste them as well.
I use real world experience in my Cost control class. When talking about costing out recipes,I will give real world experience from their kitchen classes. We will talk about breaking down meat and weighing and portioning properly. When over portioning the tenderloin 2 ounce it comes out costing pennies. But when we over portion for a month and the students see it is hundreds of dollars they start to understand why costing and portioning is so important to the bottom line, PROFIT.
Breaking large amounts of material into smaller seqments and then haveing groups of students research and report to the rest of the class, It causes interaction and group building exercises.
I utilize a "Sous Chef of the Day" and rotate through my roster. I also involve Demos and mimi-demos, so to speak, as I lecture. Having multiple resources such as a website, a book and and powerpoint used all inconjuction has really helped with multiple learning preferences.
I choose one student each week to give a demo on their favorite dish to make. If their dish is too involved or labor intensive, I somply let the student decribe which really helps with communication skills and live decriptive analysis.
It is important to break up the lecture in small parts and "review" before going to the next section of your lecture. Using small hands on or visuals during the lecture help immensely.
I use all real world culinary scenarios. No matter what the subject is I can always spin it to have an importance to their future in the culinary field. It does not matter if it is politics, religion, current events, sports, etc. it all comes back to food and the food service industry. I believe this approach helps to open their eyes to how vast the culinary industry is. I talk to them all the time about the importance of putting at least 10 min a day of professional into their personal life to keep up with our ever changing industry.
I often use recent articles in the food section of the LA times for general lectures, current marketing promotions to tie in with restaurant math lectures, and whatever other current issues, i.e. GMO, monsanto, for "Green" lectures. I also have them do research to find out on their own how each of these areas effect the culinary world.
Andrew,
This is a great idea Andrew. It is important for students to use all of their senses when becoming familiar with the various products used in our industry.
Jae Gruber
Yes I show them an actual copy of a health inspection from my business. I go over the key points that are on the checklist.Then there is an explaination how the inspector looks at those points. this gives the student a real world perspective especially if they want to have their own restaurant or foodservice establishment.
Having students discuss the topics, material. Ask the student to give examples of discussion topics. Share notes. Use Socratic Method.
