Re: [NEdpg] Teaching Intro Nutrition at Comm. College

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

 

I have been adjunct faculty for 14 years at my local college and love it. (at

least one class per semester, 3x per year...hmmm, never added it up!) Keeps me

fresh on the basics - concepts that I think a lot of RDs tend to forget. If

you only are going to teach it once it's a waste of time and probably not worth

the money. It's that first semester prepping all the material that takes a lot

of time. But once you've got that it gets easier each semester. Although it

still takes time for me b/c I'm always updating my material.

 

The book we use is Understanding Nutrition by Whitney & Rolfes and comes with

excellent resources - powerpoints, etc. Although mine are my own. When I started

teaching it was all transparencies that I handmade. Wow, how far we've come!

 

My class is primarily lecture with a lot of interaction. Primary assignments

include a written current event (and opportunity to present with discussion to

the class for extra credit), 3-day computerized diet analysis (students dread 

this at first but then their eval of project is they love it - some comments

are " this was a game changer for me " , " I am totally changing the way I eat " , " I

have already seen a change in my eating habits with this class " , " I hated this

project at first - tedious but then realized how awesome it was...doing it for

all my family " )  It's really rewarding to see students getting value from the

class.

 

And probably my favorite assignment now is an online discussion board - 4x

during the semester. Yes this is more work for me. But it gives me the

opportunity to get outside of the classroom material and share other info with

them that I find interesting.  Mindless eating article in Nutrition Action, how

the food industry/portions etc influence our eating, upplement industry

information, etc. Whatever I feel like. As we know there is so much to

nutrition.

 

It's a core class at my college so many more students are taking it (eg non

health majors) and I have to really help them understand at the beginning that

it is NOT an easy class. I think people think nutrition is going to be

easy...but as we know, it's not. Especially when you get to the physiology of it

- digestion, absorption, transport and metabolism...

 

Anyway, didn't really mean to write so much. I will email you privately about

pay.

..

Neily, MS, RD, CSSD, LD

Registered and Licensed Dietitian

Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics

Nutrition Consultant to Meals to Live, LLC www.mealstolive.com

 

Website:  www.jenniferneily.com

Twitter:  www.twitter.com/Neily 

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/NeilyonNutrition