Program Evaluation

Farm-to-Table Experiential Learning Program Evaluation

Group Members	Roles	Commented On
Carlos Guerrero	Contact evaluator and share responses; provide feedback.
M. Rose Hobby	Leader, editor, post to blog, and provide feedback.	Group 3
Kimberly Neal	Contact evaluator and share responses, summarize student responses, and provide feedback.	Group 4
Katie Ross	Write group reflection, summary table, and provide feedback.	Group 3

Professionals’ Evaluation

           The link to the program design may be accessed here: http://edac634sp17experientiallearninggroup1.blogspot.com/p/program-design.html

Both evaluators corresponded with group members by email. This section includes information that has been cleaned up for easy readability; however, copies of the original emails are available at the bottom of this blog and are labeled as Appendix A and B.

Evaluator #1 Credentials & Response

Stephanie Gray, Clinical Nutrition Manager/Patient Services Manager, Marion General Hospital
What is your position and qualifications? 

Clinical Nutrition and Patient services Manager at Marion General hospital. I am a registered dietitian and certified dietitian with the state of Indiana. I teach diabetes education, cardiac rehab diet education and facilitate the bariatric support group as well.
What do you like most about the program design? 

Plan for educating adults/students utilizing sustainable foods and incorporating multiple learning strategies to complete this task. I find in my experience that hands on education works the best for adult learning. While class room structure facilitates education, the knowledge is better obtained when instruction includes knowledge utilization in the same setting.
What do you think should be improved? Why?

The program requires no experience, but the students are required to create a menu and cook a meal. This requires the student to have basic cooking knowledge that is no longer taught in schools. Also, students may need some basic education in meal planning- knowledge of what a basic meal is composed of in order to put together and meet meal requirements. Also review of basic sanitation with meal prep as these meals are to be shared with others.

Evaluator #2 Credentials & Response

Laura Swan, Registered Architect

What is your position and qualifications?

Early College Coordinator at Vincennes University, Instructor for Architectural Studies program at Vincennes University

What do you like most about the program design?
The flexibility that is built into the program. For example, the students are allowed to choose which program at the farm they would like to attend and which foods from the farmer's market they would like to incorporate into their meal.
The incorporation of time for the student's reflections of what they have learned that day and group discussion since they may have chosen different programs at the farm to attend.
What do you think should be improved? Why?
I believe it would be more beneficial if the students would reflect on their experiences at the end of the day instead of waiting until the next day. The experiences would be fresh in their minds and I believe would lead to more group discussion.
I think that it may work better if Day 2 and Day 3 are switched. On day 2 they would go to the restaurant to observe how professional, seasoned chefs incorporate seasonal foods into their dishes. Then at the end of the day the students could menu plan for their own dishes. Day 3 would consist of going to the farmer's market to pick out the produce they would need for their dishes. Instead of eating lunch at the farmer's market, they would go back to the kitchen/classroom and prepare their meals.

Students’ Responses

After reviewing the evaluators’ responses, the group agreed unanimously that adding a “Kitchen Basics” element to the first day of the seminar would be an improvement to the program design.  This component would focus on basic sanitation regarding handling, preparing, and cooking foods and basic safety in the kitchen. In the promotion of the program, we would suggest participants have a basic knowledge of cooking, but stress that the program is about experiencing the entire farm-to-table process and cooking is only one piece of the puzzle.  In this way, we do not deter individuals with little culinary experience from enrolling in the program.

            Another suggestion was to visit the restaurant on the second day of the program, and have students prepare and share their meal on the last day.  The group debated the idea, weighed advantages and disadvantages, and in the end, we decided that altering the order of the seminar would not significantly improve the experiential learning process.  The visit to the restaurant is meant to be the culmination of the program.  The students follow the farm-to-table process and then finish with an experience that demonstrates how someone has successfully created a business around this concept.  A practical point was made in regard to this change in the schedule, which would make the second day of the seminar shorter than the last day, and the group felt the original time schedule coincided better with the pace and flow of the program design.

            A discussion took place around adjusting the reflection time, a suggestion made by one of the evaluators.  The group opinions were split on this issue, some felt a longer time for reflection was best, especially considering that the program design incorporated specific questions for the participants to answer; while others supported the evaluator’s point that reflection should take place in a more immediate time frame following the experience, perhaps at the end of each day rather than the beginning of the following day.  Several members referred back to the literature we used as a reference for this program design and did not see any specific mention of an optimal amount of time for reflection on experiential learning activities; therefore, we decided that there is no proven advantage to changing the reflection time and the original schedule remained intact.

Group Reflection

Highlights

Getting opinions from outside professionals was extremely helpful with identifying the strengths and weaknesses of our program.  Our first evaluator, Stephanie Gray, provided a unique perspective with her experience as a nutritionist.  She reviewed our program from a different point of view than we had considered.  Her suggestions to make sure participants were familiar with cooking, sanitation, and food safety were topics we had not previously thought to address.  We decided to include this suggestion in our program so that it is open to everyone, including those with little experience.  It is also an important topic because the students are being taught about the food to table concept from beginning to end.  Food safety is an important part of any food preparation.

            Our second evaluator, Laura Swan, provided the perspective of a university level adult educator.  Her experience with program design and scheduling made her uniquely qualified to comment on the structure of our seminar.  Although we ultimately decided not to make her suggested changes, she provided several interesting ideas that were carefully considered.

Process

This assignment began with our group leader, Rose, taking the reins and sending out a suggested timeline for completing this assignment.  In order for this to be completed on time, the evaluators needed to be contacts as soon as possible.  The responses from those evaluators were then shared with the entire group.  Each member then shared their thoughts and opinions about the evaluations and made suggestions on how to incorporate each suggestion into our program design.  The information was then organized into one final document. A truly collaborative effort was required to complete the final draft in a timely manner.

One tip we have discovered through this process is that organization is important for successfully completing group work.  If a timeline had not been established in the beginning, the evaluators might not have gotten back to us in time for us to thoroughly reflect on the suggestions.

Table 2. Summary of Program Evaluation

Evaluators	Ideas for Improving Program Design	Revisions/Responses
Stephanie Gray	1. Provide students with basic meal planning instruction      2. Review basic food sanitation requirements and basic cooking skills	1.Since the students are given the option to use one of our preplanned meal ideas, we decided not to include instruction on meal planning.  There is only a limited about of time during a 3-day seminar and there is not time for all cooking topics to be addressed.      2. A short “Kitchen Basics” segment will be taught during the first day.  This will include kitchen safety and sanitation as well as basic cooking techniques.
Laura Swan	1. Have the students reflect on the experience at the end of the day instead of the beginning of the next day.      2. Switch the activities of days 2 and 3 around so that the participants are preparing their meal before going to the restaurant	1. The reflection component will remain at the beginning of the next day.  Although we see the value of reflecting immediately after the activity, we want to allow the students to have adequate time to reflect on all discussion/reflection questions.       2. The schedule will remain as it was in the original program design.  There are benefits and limitations to both scheduling ideas.  However, there did not appear to be an increased benefit from making this change and it would create an awkward flow due to a shorter second day.

Appendix A

Swan Program Evaluation Correspondence

From: Laura Swan <lkswan@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 6:26:36 PM
To: Neal, Kimberly Fay
Subject: Farm to table program

1. What do I like most about the program design?

·  The flexibility that is built into the program. For example, the students are allowed to choose which program at the farm they would like to attend and which foods from the farmer's market they would like to incorporate into their meal.

·  The incorporation of time for the student's reflections of what they have learned that day and group discussion since they may have chosen different programs at the farm to attend.

2. What do I think should be improved? Why? How?

·  I believe it would be more beneficial if the students would reflect on their experiences at the end of the day instead of waiting until the next day. The experiences would be fresh in their minds and I believe would lead to more group discussion.

·  I think that it may work better if Day 2 and Day 3 are switched. On day 2 they would go to the restaurant to observe how professional, seasoned chefs incorporate seasonal foods into their dishes. Then at the end of the day the students could menu plan for their own dishes. Day 3 would consist of going to the farmer's market to pick out the produce they would need for their dishes. Instead of eating lunch at the farmer's market, they would go back to the kitchen/classroom and prepare their meals.

Laura Swan

Registered Architect

Early College Coordinator at Vincennes University

Instructor for Architectural Studies program at Vincennes University

Appendix B

Gray Program Evaluation Correspondence

From: Gray,Stephanie <stephanie.gray@mgh.net>

Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 5:40 PM

Subject: Farm to table evaluation

To: Guerrero, Carlos A <caguerrero@bsu.edu>

Carlos

Below are my responses to each question:

1. Clinical Nutrition and Patient services Manager at Marion General hospital. I am a registered dietitian and certified dietitian with the state of Indiana. I teach diabetes education, cardiac rehab diet education and facilitate the bariatric support group as well.

2. Plan for educating adults/students utilizing sustainable foods and incorporating multiple learning strategies to complete this task. I find in my experience that hands-on education works the best for adult learning. While class room structure facilitates education, the knowledge is better obtain when instruction includes knowledge utilization in the same setting .

3. The program requires no experience, but the students are required to create a menu and cook a meal. This requires the student to have basic cooking knowledge which is no longer taught in schools. Also, students may need some basic education in meal planning- knowledge of what a basic meal is composed of in order to put together and meet meal requirements. Also, review of basic sanitation with meal prep as these meals are to be shared with others.

Let me know if you have further questions

thanks

Stephanie Gray RD CD

Clinical Nutrition Manager/Patient services Manager

Marion General Hospital

765-660-7133/6690

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