The Summit kicked off to a great start with keynote, Milt Cox, who shared his great insights on the need for community in our personal and professional lives. Milt shared why it is important for faculty to connect with others not only inside their department but reach out to those in other departments and universities to form communities to advance teaching and learning around issues or topics that are important to any given voluntarily formed faculty community. He also provided great suggestions on books on teaching that culinary arts and hospitality educators should read to learn more about the importance of learning communities, from such books as Bowling Alone, to great teaching books such as Active Learning.
As a result of Milt's presentation the FELC is going to form a faculty learning community around the topic of culinary math and invite members to join it. The community may begin by meeting perhaps at Purdue University this summer and forming the goals and objectives of the group then meeting via conference call to find ways to crack the code of culinary math and accounting for culinary arts and hospitality educators that could then be shared at the second annual summit.
The panel presentation that followed on sustainable farming was also went very, very well. The one great tip given by the small farmers to those in attendance was to add the requirement in the syllabus that students visit a local farmer and help do whatever work is needed at the time to tend to the crops or livestock to keep them viable; in return the farmers indicated they could then be in position to donate fresh foods to the culinary arts or hospitality program for students to use in their studies.
The tradeshow and luncheon was buzzing with conversation among attendees and sponsors who ate great food prepared by the students as they visited with sponsors.
The first ultimate teaching competition was also a great success. The three competitors gave it their all to win the ultimate teacher award while being judged by a panel of judges as well as all of those who watched the event.
The afternoon poster sessions and roundtables were also a great success with people popping in and out to learn countless ways to improve their teaching.
The closing reception included an oyster roast and complimentary wine and beer. It was the end to a great day at the Summit.
Stay tuned to the blog and to the website for photos from the Summit in the public area. The members area will have the presentations and posters from the sessions available for other members to download and use to improve their teaching.
Stay tuned for more announcements on how members can earn a large cash prize from one of our sponsors!
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