Indianapolis, Indiana
June 15, 2014
June 15, 2014
June 18, 2014
2153-5965
Biological & Agricultural
12
24.338.1 - 24.338.12
10.18260/1-2--20229
https://peer.asee.org/20229
673
Silvia Husted is Science, Engineering, and Technology Education Ph.D. Student at Universidad de las Americas Puebla in Mexico. She teaches design related courses. Her research interests include creative thinking, cognitive processes, and creating effective learning environments.
Nelly Ramírez-Corona is currently a Full Time Professor of Chemical Engineering at Chemical, Enviromental and Food Engineering Department, Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, México. Her teaching experience is in the area of Process Dynamics and Control, Kinetics, Catalysis and Reactor Design. Her research interests are in the field of Process Systems Engineering. Her research labor has been reported on scientific international journals and presented in different national and international conferences.
Professor Palou is Director, Center for Science, Engineering, and Technology Education as well as Distinguished Professor and Past Chair, Department of Chemical, Food, and Environmental Engineering at Universidad de las Americas Puebla in Mexico. He teaches engineering, food science, and education related courses. His research interests include emerging technologies for food processing, creating effective learning environments, using tablet PCs and associated technologies to enhance the development of 21st century expertise in engineering students, and building rigorous research capacity in science, engineering and technology education.
Creativity and its Assessment in a Design and Development of Food Products and Processes CourseThe main task of a food engineer is to design and operate processes to transform raw materialsinto final products, particularly with the aim to control, prevent, or delay spoilage caused bychemical reactions, physical effects, and/or biological activity1. At ABC University foodengineering (FE) students apply their knowledge and skills required to function in the differentfields of FE in the capstone course entitled Design and Development of Food Products andProcesses, which outcomes include that students will be able to: a) Identify consumer andcommercial factors that should be considered when designing a new product, b) Describe theproduct to be developed, c) Develop and evaluate potential product formulations, d) Propose themanufacturing process for the product to be developed, e) Choose the most suitable packagingfor the product, f) Evaluate the shelf-life of the product, g) Locate and describe the lawsapplicable to the ingredients used to ensure the safety of the developed product, h) Develop anutritional label for the product, h) Identify critical control points and limits of the proposedprocess, and i) Estimate operating costs and investment required to start the production line. Creative thinking in higher education can only be expressed productively within a particulardomain. The student must have a strong foundation in the strategies and skills of the domain inorder to make connections and synthesize. While demonstrating solid knowledge of the domain'sparameters, the creative thinker, at the highest levels of performance, pushes beyond thoseboundaries in new, unique, or atypical re-combinations, uncovering or critically perceiving newsyntheses and using or recognizing creative risk-taking to achieve a solution2. With sights set onthis, the full paper will present with further detail the didactic intervention whose purpose was toenhance creative thinking, make the food product design and development processes moreefficient as well as to overall improve the creative experience in the studied capstone course3-6. Creativity assessment was grounded on the Consensual Assessment Technique7 (CAT), whichis based on the idea that the best measure of creativity regardless of what is being evaluated, isthe assessment by experts in that field. Therefore, a group of experts in the FE field were invitedto evaluate capstone course final projects and developed food products by means of the CreativeThinking VALUE Rubric, which is made up of a set of attributes that are common to creativethinking across disciplines2. Possible performance levels were entitled capstone or exemplar(value of 4), milestones (values of 3 or 2), and benchmark (value of 1). Instructor, peer-, and self-assessments were also performed throughout the course and on final project. Evaluators werefurther encouraged to assign a value of zero if work did not meet benchmark level performance.Mean values from rubric assessment of final projects were 2.35 for Acquiring Competencies(attaining strategies and skills within a particular domain), 2.42 for Taking Risks (may includepersonal risk, fear of embarrassment or rejection, or risk of failure in successfully completingassignment, i.e. going beyond original parameters of assignment, introducing new materials andforms, tackling controversial topics, advocating unpopular ideas or solutions), 2.44 for SolvingProblems, 2.44 for Embracing Contradictions, 2.40 for Innovative Thinking (novelty oruniqueness of idea, claim, question, form, etc.), and 2.24 for Connecting, Synthesizing, andTransforming. Students’ creative thinking was at an intermediate level in both the capacity tocombine or synthesize existing ideas or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking,reacting, and working in an imaginative way.[1] XXX [For blind review purposes]. 2013. Proceedings of the 2013 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Atlanta, GA, June 23 – 26.[2] AAC&U. 2013. Creative Thinking Value Rubric. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Available online at http://www-.aacu.org/value/- rubrics/pdf/All_Rubrics.pdf[3] Baer, J. 1993. Creativity and diverge/if thinking: A task-specific approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.[4] Fogler, H. S. and LeBlanc S. E. 2007. Strategies for creative problem solving. 2nd Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.[5] Guilford, J. P. 1950. Creativity. American Psychologist, 5: 444-154.[6] Sternberg, R. J. and Lubart, T. I. 1993. Creative Giftedness: A Multivariate Investment Approach. Gifted Child Quarterly, 37(1): 7-15.[7] Amabile, T. M. 1982. Social Psychology of Creativity: A Consensual Assessment Technique, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(5): 997-1013.
Husted, S., & Ramirez-Corona, N., & Lopez-Malo, A., & Palou, E. (2014, June), Creativity and its Assessment in a Design and Development of Food Products and Processes Course Paper presented at 2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis, Indiana. 10.18260/1-2--20229
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