Presented By: Monica Giusti, The Ohio State University

Will I ever use this? Students often ask themselves or each other this question. A major challenges teaching required classes is to keep students engaged, and to efficiently communicate how the concepts covered in class, lectures, labs, or discussions are actually relevant to the real world, and that the concepts covered in class have practical application in their professional future.

Over the years of teaching a course in Food Quality Assurance, we repeatedly stumbled on this question. Our goal was to increase student engagement and our hypothesis was that students would care if they could see how these concepts are applied in the food industry. With this goal in mind, we tested a new approach for our laboratory portion of the class: we tested the idea of “hiring” students in the class as Quality Control technicians for an imaginary food company that produces all sorts of products, from fruits and vegetables, candy, beverages, and more, depending on the topic to be covered in class.

Each laboratory activity is set up with a potential situation that the company could be facing: reception of products, evaluation of the competitor's products, evaluation of quality parameters of the company's production, analytical techniques and more, and evaluation of the variability of their production line.

As “recently hired employees” students engage in their new role, and in the tasks on hand, including the use of the company nametag, and following the safety and quality standard of the company. We recorded increased participation and engagement in lab activities, and understanding of the activities. Quality control shifted from repetitive practices to decision-making challenges with critical relevance to a company. Student interactions increased, promoting discussion and improving data interpretation.

Real life scenarios and immersion in work environment even when simulated increased engagement and improved the learning experience.