NTDT 321 - Quantity Food Production and Service

• 303 C Willard Hall Building
• (302) 831-2732
• e-mail - lieux@udel.edu
• Office hours by appointment: Thursday 11:00 to 4:30 - Call 831-8976 to make an appointment

Where would you like to go in the syllabus?

Course description

Principles of quantity food production and delivery systems, menu planning and purchasing, safety, sanitation and technical operations in a foodservice system. (Prerequisites: NTDT 200 and NTDT 201)

It is my hope that you will enhance your skills as a critical thinker, communicator, researcher and life-long learner as we progress together through this course.  I believe that learning is more than memorizing information and answering questions on a test.  It is using information to gain an understanding of how things work and then to make them better.  A friend shared this grand defination of learning with me.
 
What is learning?
"Learning (is) a process that culminates in the ability:
• to ask the right questions and frame good problems,
• to acquire information and evaluate sources of information
• to critically investigate and solve problems,
• to make choices among many alternatives
• to explain concepts to others (both verbally and in writing) and
• to generalize to new situations."
Ganter SL & Kinder JS, editors. Targeting Institutional Change: Quality Undergraduate Science Education for All Students. Targeting Curricular Change: Reform in undergraduate education in science, math, engineering, and technology. A report of the 1998 AAHE Conference on Institutional Change. The American Association for Higher Education.
I hope that when you finish this course you will be able to say; "I have learned how to learn and I have learned how to work effectively with team members to solve problems."

Students are expected to conform to the university policy on academic honesty.

Method of Instruction:

This course is offered in a Problem-based Learning (PBL) format. PBL is a highly regarded method of actively engaging interest in the material to be learned. People who study using PBL are likely to learn more deeply and remember the information for much longer than those who learn in lecture-based courses.

Students will be placed in permanent learning groups that will work on a series of problems related to Quantity Food Production and Service. Students will develop a list of what they do not know for each problem (the learning issues). They will prioritize the learning issues and then assign them to the group members. Each member will research his or her learning issue(s) and then teach the rest of the group what was learned at the next class meeting. Learning will be assessed by several methods:  tests, exams, in-class discussion, oral reports, and write ups of the problem.

Discussion of the learning issues among group members will occur during the class period. The instructor or teaching assistant will sit-it with the group, listen to the discussion, ask questions, and act as a resource. It should not be necessary for groups to hold meetings outside of class. Most discussion can occur during class sessions if each group member is well-prepared and has done the assigned research.

Textbooks:

Required:  Lieux, EM and Luoto P. Exploring Quantity Food Production and Service Using Problems, 2nd ed.  2000. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

And:  Payne-Palacio and Theis. Introduction to Foodservice, 10th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2005.

Or: Spears and Gregoire, Foodservice Organizations, 5th edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2005.

There are readings available for each problem on reserve in Morris Library. These readings may be accessed either by going to the reserve reading room and requesting the desired readings OR using the electronic course reserves. Electronic course reserves are only available if you are using a computer with a udel.edu domain.

There are a wide variety of electronic resources available through the Internet for most of the problems. These may be accessed by clicking on the title. It is also recommended that you search the internet yourself to find your own resources.   It is important to use reliable resources whether a published article or an Internet resource and to cite them correctly in your reports.

Many students choose to use sources other than those made available by the instructor. Care should be taken in choosing reliable resources. Tips for evaluating a World Wide Web Search

Worksheets are found in the required textbook (Lieux and Luoto, Exploring Quantity Food Production and Service through Problems).  See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for due dates. Worksheets will be checked for completeness by the teaching assistant and returned.  But the scores will not be entered into the gradebook until they are submitted to the instructor. You may keep your worksheets until the final exam. But they should be turned in then or you will receive no credit.  Grading is based on a three point scale of check plus, check, and check minus.

Testing:

Tests are scheduled to explore the material addressed in the problems. See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for dates. Each test will cover the material developed in the previous problem and the worksheet which preceded that problem.  Some of the questions will require knowledge of the facts which should have been learned.  Some of the questions will ask for the use of critical thinking skills.  You will be asked to apply what you have learned to a new situation.

Tests will be graded but not returned.  Each test is worth 10 points.  They may be reviewed during the instructor's office hours. See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for dates of tests. Each test is divided into two parts. The first section is worth 7 points and is answered individually. The second section is worth 3 points and is answered by the group.

Grades will be posted in the classroom by random number.  Each student will be assigned a random number.  You are encouraged to keep your number confidential and not share it with other class members.

A final exam is scheduled during finals week.  This test will be cumulative and will cover all of the material of the course.  The final is a total of 60 points.  You will have a choice of which questions you wish to answer.

A report of most problems will be submitted by the reporter for each group. This report will be carefully prepared and will include the learning issues to be addressed, a discussion of each learning issue based on the research and sharing of information by the group, and a list of references consulted. The report should be well documented noting the source of each assertion within the report. (See Lieux and Luoto for write up expectations.) I expect each member of the group to make contributions to each write up and to help the reporter by editing the written document. Write ups will be graded and will be available for review. They will not be returned. See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for due dates of write ups.  Each write up is worth 10 points.

For the problem entitled Thomas Jefferson two menu cycles will be submitted and for Ray Kroc a production sheet and equipment specification will be submitted as part of the write up.

Two oral reports will be presented by each group. These reports are to be professionally prepared and should include visual aids to enhance the presentation. [If the group wishes to present the report using Power Point, let the instructor know so a laptop computer can be available.]   Reports are limited in time (to be announced) and will be presented by the group reporter. A bibliography of resources consulted will be submitted with each oral report. Each report is worth 10 points. See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for due dates of oral reports.

Early in the semester there is to be a report on the group name. Groups are to name themselves. Possible names are foods, or microorganism which cause food borne illness, or foodservice companies. Whatever name is chosen, extensive research will be conducted on the topic. The group will prepare a complete report on the name which will be presented by the reporter.

Towards the end of the semester the second oral report will be given on "David Bedford". Each group will research one aspect of the problem and the reporter will present the findings to the rest of the class.  When an oral report is required there will be no write-up.

Performance evaluations:

In most professional positions in dietetics, the practitioner is responsible for managing other employees.  In clinical positions those managed may be clinical dietitians, dietetic technicians and dietetic assistants.  Community and management positions will have a variety of employees who report to the registered dietitian.  Developing performance evaluations is a crucial component of managing the assigned staff and you need to learn this skill before you are placed in a situation where you are asked to evaluate your subordinates.  Learning to evaluate the performance of your peers in group work is a very good way to begin learning evaluation skills. For this and other reasons you will be responsible for informal and formal peer evaluations.

Members of each group will provide feedback to the rest of the group at regular intervals to indicate how effectively the group is functioning. There will be informal feedback each week to talk about how the group is doing.  You should discuss what the group is doing well to increase learning and where the group needs to improve.  Twice during the semester you will complete a peer evaluation form about the performance of each member of the group including yourself. The instructor will also complete a performance evaluation at the end of the semester about the effectiveness of each member of the group.  Each evaluation is 25 points.  All of the formal evaluations are included in the final class grade. See Tentative schedule of classes and other activities for dates to submit peer evaluations.

Grading:

Final grades will be calculated based on an accumulation of points.
 

Tentative schedule of classes and other activities

Updated August, 2006.
Send comments to lieux@udel.edu
Copyright by Elizabeth M.Lieux, University of Delaware, 1997.