Digital diet planning task in a Food and health subject curriculum in teacher education

Abstract

This practitioners’ inquiry focuses on students’ and teacher educator’s experiences and reflections in implementing a digital diet planning task (DPT) as a learning/teaching method in an academic primary and secondary school teacher education at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). DPT involved students individually registering of all foods and beverages they ate during a 24- hour period, computing nutrients and energy consumptions by using a digital program and evaluated their diets by comparing these with the Norwegian Health Directorate’s nutrients and diet recommendations. They also reflected on what food they could remove or substitute in order to consume a healthier diet. The data was collected by a questionnaire administered to 23 students, interviews of eight students, and teacher educator’s observation notes. The findings indicate that the task made the students more aware of healthy food choices based on scientific knowledge and regarded DPT as relevant to their future teacher careers. Most students responded positively to DPT as a teaching/learning method and meant that DPT supported their learning of the subjects’ content knowledge but only little new digital skills. The results indicate that several students had propositional content knowledge, teachers’ knowledge and professional knowledge.