FELC Welcomes Mercer Tool as New Sponsor

We are proud to announce that Mercer Tool Corporation ("Mercer") has agreed to sponsor the FELC. As indicated on the company website, "Mercer was founded in 1968 on Mercer Street in New York City. Mercer was the brainchild of Mel Wallick, who believed that there were many opportunities to improve the products available to the industrial markets in North America. At that time, industrial markets were supplied by a few, very expensive European and North American manufacturers. Imports were either sized incorrectly or had quality issues. Mr. Wallick believed a manufacturer could gain market share by offering quality, performance and price. These three words remain the motto of this second generation family business, a business that has now expanded to include a full line of abrasives, files and safety equipment, as well chef cutlery, apparel and accessories."

Mercer has been a long time supporter of culinary arts and hospitality educators and that fine tradition carries on through it sponsorship of our learning community. Please take the time to visit the company website if you have not done so in awhile to learn about the fine products Mercer has to offer you and your students by visiting http://www.mercertool.com/

Do Something Unpredictable!

I got my bachelor's degree at the University of North Texas (which was North Texas State when I was attending). During that time, I had a psychology professor who would suddenly stop at various points in his lecture and do something random and unrelated to the topic at hand like tell a story about when he was a kid, make some off the wall comment, take a few dance steps, and so forth. We never knew what he was going to do, or when he was going to do it; he may not even have known himself. I do know one thing; it made me pay attention to what he was doing because I never wanted to miss the random act(s).

Hence, the message of this post -- do something unpredictable when in the midst of teaching students. I adopted that tactic in my teaching years ago and find it to be a great way to give students' brains a chance to pause and then refocus on the task at hand. As you know I am at Purdue. Just the other day I started a chant in my large lecture class of 200 students with, "Give me a P!" Give me a "U!" I am certain that the kids thought I was going to have them spell "Purdue!" Not so, I had them give me another P, then another P, then a Y. I asked them, "What's that spell?" They yelled, "Puppy!?" To which I replied in a very sweet loving way, "Aw, aren't puppies cute?" "Who doesn't love puppies?" I then went back to my lecture on customer service. The look on the faces of the students was priceless, a sort of "What the heck just happened?" They will also pay attention for the next random act as I did long ago in that psychology teacher's class.

Try this technique, it works. The students in my classes look, as I once did long ago, for me to do something unpredictable and so are tricked into focusing more on the rest of what I say as a result. Besides, it is a great way to punctuate a presentation in a fun and unique manner and provide a bit of a mental rest so that the students can then go back to learning about the topic at hand.

Have a great weekend!

Novel Case Study: Saving the St. George

For those looking for new and different ways to teach hospitality management, the Education Institute has recently promoted a novel, entitled Saving the St. George, by hospitality veteran Greg Plank. The novel tells the story of retired Marine Edwin Christian who inherits the elegant but aging Hotel St. George from his grandfather. As it turns out, the hotel has fallen on hard times and Edwin must make decisions to restore it to its former luster. The novel is designed to be an interesting read for students who will read about Edwin’s attempt to turn around the hotel by handling such challenges as a dead body in a guest room, colorful and sometimes shady hotel guests, and more.

As an educational tool, the book is designed to a case study to help teachers have conversations with students around such topics as security, guest service, and purchasing. Another key feature of the novel is its price. Because it is not a “textbook” the cost to students to purchase the book is $10.00 (net-to-bookstore/academic price). To order, “Saving the St. George,” you may call EI at 800-344-4381 or 517-372-8800, or visit http://www.eiacademic.org/

Also, if you have used this book in your teaching and want to offer up a book review e-mail Mick La Lopa at Mlalopa@fooded.org. You can also share what you know about the book by responding directly to this post.

One-Sentence Summary

Many use the lecture method to convey course materials to students because it is very efficient. However, when giving large amounts of information to students in a 50-minute, or 10-minute lecture, how much are they actually processing and retaining? The answer is, "not much," unless trained to do so.

The one-sentence summary is a good technique to help students proces information and has been shown to help students improve memory skills, listening skills, reading skills, and study skills. The technique requires students to answer the questions "Who, does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?" about a given topic and then asked to synthesize that information into one long comprehensive sumary sentence.

Pretend students have just been given a lecture on the importance of handwashing during a basic lecture on foodservice sanitation and safety. Once the students are been given the information, perhaps in the form of a lecture, they then work independently to construct a sentence that answers the questions above, such as: All cooks and chefs must (who?) wash (does what?) their hands thoroughly (to what or whom?) after handling raw meat, fish, and poultry (when?) at the handwashing stations (where?) using the method demonstrated and practiced in class (how?) to prevent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses at foodservice establishments (why?). Once trained to take information and process it in the form of a single-sentence student performance could very well improve in classroom and lab assessments so give it a try.

For more teaching tips like these consult Angelo and Cross (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

Perhaps you have heard of "some faculty member" giving "some last lecture" on something or other that has become quite a phenomenon on the internet and education circles. That person happened to be a very popular professor, Randy Pausch, who was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. He was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer and he has sadly since passed away. As you may know, the concept of asking faculty to reflect hypothetically on what they would say if had the chance to give one last lecture has been a faculty development exercise that has been used for awhile. The last lecture became a fact of life for Randy Pausch and he gave it at Carnegie Mellon, and the reprised it on Oprah.

The original lecture has been downloaded millions of times and runs about an hour and 16 minutes and is worth the time to watch in your spare time. As Randy gives his last lecture on life and realizing childhood dreams there are many things he said that I found to be quite thought provoking and inspirational and gave me the chance to compare and contrast his viewpoint to my own. Of course, I found out that I can always do more to breathe life into my teaching so students accomplish even more than I could have ever imagined. I hope you will benefit from watching it, too. Oh, and have a kleenex at the ready as you may shed a tear or two during the lecture.

The full original lecture can be found on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
The reprised lecture he gave on Oprah can be viewed at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469