Health Professions Division

Family Food & Nutrition FN 230
Instructor: NOY RATHAKETTE, Ph.D., Eugene, Oregon


SYLLABUS, Family Food & Nutrition, FN230

META CRN 40121, 42281

SPRING, 2012


!!!IMPORTANT!!!

  1. Students who do NOT submit the Orientation Quiz and Unit 1 Study Questions by midnight Saturday of the 1st week) may be administratively dropped from the class unless you've made arrangements with me.
  2. As of Monday morning of Week 1 (or maybe a day or so earlier), registered students can log in online to this course by going to http://moodle.lanecc.edu.  Once there, you will be asked for your "L" number as well as your password (perhaps just the first 6 characters).  Next you should see the title of this course as well as any other online courses you're taking.  Click on the title then look at the materials and activities beneath Week 1.

INSTRUCTOR
Office hour:  Tuesday  11 am.-1 pm.

NOY RATHAKETTE, Ph.D.

MAILBOX

Building 4, Room 228.

Please send me a message BEFORE you leave something there.

PHONE

Please contact me via Moodle (Best) or LCC email
Do not leave a message on my office phone as I don't get to check it regularly.

Class Mail and e-mail

Once you are logged into the class, please communicate with me with the class message system rather that my LCC address.

My e-mail address is rathaketten@lanecc.edu

Moodle url

http://moodle.lanecc.edu

Student help desk (SHeD) for getting help if needed:

541-463-3333
http://www.lanecc.edu/icl/shed.htm

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This 3-credit course covers how to prepare and offer to families a variety of nutrient dense foods in an environment that helps them develop a positive approach to eating. It is designed for parents (or those considering a family) and/or early childhood educators. Appropriate techniques for feeding infants and children as well as solutions to feeding problems are discussed. Each food group's role in a nutritionally adequate diet is reviewed. Presented are ideas for menu planning and food selection as well as a variety of quick, nutritious and tasty recipes.

Required Texts-

Check above Week 1 for a Calendar of the reading.

INTERNET ACCESS

If you do not have a computer at home with Internet access, you can also find computers at the following locations:

        You can now access the CENTER 456 Testing Hours and Test Request Form at:  http://www.lanecc.edu/socsci/testinglabinfo.html

COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

  1. Develop eating patterns that promote health.
  2. Make eating choices based on some knowledge of a sustainable U.S. food production system.
  3. Avoid restrictive dietary formulas that perpetuate fearful and anxious attitudes about food and eating.
  4. Describe the responsibilities of parents and children when it comes to feeding.
  5. Identify the role of each food group in a nutritionally adequate diet.
  6. Select, prepare and enjoy wholesome food that tastes good and is easily prepared using inexpensive, locally available foods.
  7. Have a collection of recipes for the above types of foods.
  8. Describe appropriate techniques for feeding infants and children.
  9. Suggest appropriate solutions to feeding problems with infants and children.
  10. Understand both sides of some nutrition issues such as breast vs. formula feeding and vegetarianism for children.
  11. Have menu ideas for adults and children of all ages.
  12. Evaluate children's books for their messages about food and health.
  13. Considering the online (Moodle is the name of the program we'll be using) component of this class, my goals are for you to:

What this class is and isn't

Family Food Nutrition is designed to complement the Nutrition class, FN 225. That class focuses on what specific nutrients do for us. This class focuses on how families can go about staying well-nourished. It IS a required class for the Early Childhood Development program but it does NOT satisfy the nutrition requirement for the nursing program.

Why all the "computer stuff"?

This class is sort of like taking a class in a very foreign country- you usually want to first learn a bit about the country you're in. If you went to a nutrition classroom in the jungle in a remote part of South America, before you could begin learning, you'd probably want to get comfortable in your surroundings. Without electricity, what are you going to use for light at night, how will you get handouts without a photocopy machine, what are the new vocabulary words you need to know... will there be snakes? You'd be in new territory, with a great potential for new types of learning... and new frustration. So during the first few weeks of this class, sometimes you'll feel like this is a computer class rather than a nutrition one. That's because this way of learning may be foreign to some of you and you'll want to know the language and the "hows" to get the most out of this class. In addition, I'm hoping you'll get confident and comfortable being in a cyber classroom (if you aren't already), and leave at the end of the term with a few computer skills as well as lots of nutrition information that you'll use over and over again during your lifetime.

The Student Help Desk (a.k.a. the SHeD) offers technical support for distance learning students. 541-463-3333

COURSE DESIGN, EVALUATION AND GRADING

I have worked very hard to write clear instructions and past students have helped with them. The most serious problem we continue to have with instructions is that THEY HAVE TO BE READ AND USED and we human beings just aren't inclined to do that. Many of us prefer:

In an online class, just telling or showing you is not possible, unless you want to frequently come see the instructor. And you can choose to "just muddle through", but if you decide to do that, you may end up with lots of frustration and with a poor grade in the class. You can also end up with a poor grade if you decide to just guess. So I'd suggest that if you'd like to efficiently get the most out of this class and earn a good grade, you pay close attention to the instructions in each Unit.  You'll be able to interact with me, your classmates and the course material with a minimum of frustration and a maximum of success if you do that.

A major part of this class are the Unit STUDY QUESTIONS, and the questions are usually based on the assigned reading. In the UNIT PREPARATIONS document for each week, I will tell you specifically what the questions will be and I will tell you where to find the answer.  I will post the UNIT PREPARATIONS document the Friday or Saturday before the week is to begin.  For example, the Unit 4 Preparations document will be posted on Friday of Week 3 beneath Week 4.

Once you have prepared, WITH YOUR ANSWERS IN FRONT OF YOU, you can answer the questions online.  Study Questions will always be due on Saturday before 11:55pm.

You take the Orientation Quiz two times, but everything else can be submitted only one time, including the Study Questions and Exams.

Each week you'll be asked to answer OPINION QUESTIONS related to the course content.  I am interested in your honest opinions.  Please do not answer these questions with what you think I want you to say. Instead, give your honest opinion.  We'll look at the results of the class as a whole the following week.

My expectation is for you to prepare for and answer the Study Questions and Exams individually, although you can ask me or your classmates questions if you're having difficulty with a particular question. Students who cheat face penalties determined by Division and College policies.
It will be considered cheating if you
:

Unit Study Question results, with access to the correct answers and comment, will be posted about a day after the availability period has ended.

MAIL

Reading Messages:  When you get to any class you have in Moodle, on the top left you see the word Messages.  If you have any messages, you see the name of the person the message is from.  To read the mail, click on the envelope icon.  
Sending Messages:  One way to send me a message is to click where it says "Participants�" and then click in the "Select" box beside my name.  Then you will have the opportunity to send me a message. 

EDITING PROFILE: If you have mail from me, you will see an icon of a photograph beside my name.  You can upload a photograph for yourself by choosing  "Participants" under the "Administration" block.   Then click on your name.  Then you will have an "Edit Profile" choice.  I really hope you do this.  It's such fun seeing a picture of you-- or whatever you choose to represent yourself-- when I read a message from you.  When you edit your profile, you will also have the opportunity to disable your email address if you would rather not get messages in your personal email regarding this class.

DINNER CONVERSATIONS:  We will also be taking advantage of several unique advantages of the online component of this class to enhance learning. One is the ability of ALL of us to interact (about a topic ALL of us have experience with as part of a family) and learn from each other. Moodle calls these FORUM discussions, but we're going to call them DINNER CONVERSATIONS. In each Unit, I will ask you to first read specific sections of one of our books. Then in the DINNER CONVERSATIONS, I will pose questions for you to respond to based on this reading.   You can respond either to me, or to a comment posted by another student.

One former student said in their class evaluation that what he or she especially liked about this class was "the interaction in the dinner conversations, you could learn from everybody". Another said they liked "the input from all the students, but especially the parents. It is wonderful for others to have non-biased opinions and be able to share them without repercussions. The books were some help but not as much as the students."

The author of our books, Ellyn Satter, is quite opinionated and I've found that an advantage as she sparks some lively discussion among those who agree with her as well as those who disagree with her. Occasionally, I feel Satter gives outdated information, such as when she discusses organically-grown foods. I give a number of alternate resources in each unit, so you will have many opportunities to gather other information besides hers.

Keep in mind that I will be monitoring (and occasionally contributing to) these conversations and you should make only respectful, appropriate and relevant comments. Any distasteful or offensive communication will be dealt with harshly and could result in being expelled from the course or the college.

After a DINNER CONVERSATION and the UNIT Study Questions are due, I will post the OPINION QUESTION results and you can review the Dinner Conversation. For a Unit Study Question, I will ask you to review your participation and your responses as well as others' responses and this will be a part of your score on that set of Study Questions.

EXAMS: Twice during the term, you will have Exams which will be a random selection of the Unit questions. Exams will NOT have new questions.

QUIRKY COMPUTER: Sometimes your computer may have trouble handling certain features of the class and it might start "acting up". If that happens, try closing all applications and re-starting the computer.

BROWSER: Moodle works best on Macintosh OS X or above using the browsers  Safari or Firefox 1.5 (I find Safari to be faster and more reliable.)  With a PC, Internet Explorer 6 or higher is supported.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES (All online. NO scheduled campus times.)

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS: 188

A+ = 98-100% of possible points
A = 92 - 97%
A- = 90-91%
B+ = 88 - 89%
B = 82 - 87%
B- = 80 - 81%

C+ = 78 - 79%
C = 72 - 77%
C- = 70-71%
D = 60-69%
F = below 60%

I suspect we all would agree that the first objective listed for this course (to develop eating patterns that promote health) is an important one. I'm hoping that the format of this course will help to accomplish that objective, as well as the others in the list.

TIME COMMITMENT

Since this is a college-transfer class, it is expected that you will have just under 3 hours of work per week for every credit, which for this class, works out to about 6-9 hours of work per week for A quality work. From talking to other instructors for online courses, it seems that the single most difficult task students face in online courses is planning their daily and weekly routines so they have this kind of time.

You will probably have the most success with this class if you log on at least 3 times per week, similar to the number of class sessions this class was previously.

LATE POLICY

If you submitted your Study Question online after they are due on Saturday (and before the availability period ends on Monday), the written questions will probably not be graded until you request it (Notice the DUE date on Saturday is different than the AVAILABILITY date on Monday). You may request this ONE time during the term by contacting me through the mail system in Moodle and notifying me that you have submitted your Study Question to be graded.

After the availability period ends, which is Monday at midnight (11:55pm) the Study Question canNOT be submitted ONLINE. 

If you finished them but did not meet the deadline, let me know, you can send the answers via moodle mail to me (no attachment). I can then give you up to 70% of the points. Don't send them via LCC email (or as an attachment) as I sometimes won’t receive your email in school email system.  I will allow you to do this one time.


Late Exam is allowed only when you have a special circumstance.  Late exams will receive a 10% deduction of points and will have to be taken in the Testing Center (Testing Lab) at LCC.  In the Testing Lab, 456 Center Building, they only allow a 3x5 notecard so you will not be able to use all your notes when taking an exam late in the testing center.  You are not allowed to take Exam4 late as the grades are due.


Students are advised NOT to wait until the last minute to post assignments. You might also want to check your computer's clock to see if it's accurate.

Dinner Conversations are set to close at 11:55 pm of the due date (usually Saturday) and you will not be able to post after that date and time.


ACCESSIBILITY

If you need support or assistance because of a disability, you may be eligible for academic accommodations through Disability Services.  For more information, contact Disability Services at (541) 463-5150 (voice) or (541) 463-3079 (TTY), or stop by Building 1, Room 218.

Lane Community College is an Affirmative Action institution. Updated March, 2012