Comparison of microbiology course for undergraduates in food science between China and the United States

Abstract:

The present study investigated the differences in syllabus, teaching methodology, practice, and learning assessment for Microbiology course designed for Food Science undergraduate between Nanchang University (NCU) in China and University of Minnesota (UMN) in the US. The study found that, compared with UMN Microbiology course, NCU Microbiology course involves little advanced contents, lacks of classroom discussion, and mainly relies on final exam for learning evaluation. NCU students tend to spend time to study only before exams, which limits their full understanding of the subjects being taught and does not favor long-term knowledge retention. In addition, their ability to apply knowledge to solving real problems is poor due to lack of practice. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommend that we redesign our syllabus so that it is student-centered, renovate our course materials in order to implement the student-center syllabus and to include updated knowledge in the field, adopt problem-base learning methodology, enhance cases studies, adopt teaching assistant policy, improve learning assessment, and invest in instructor engineering training programs.