Nutritional counseling: Interactive videos for learning conversation techniques

I am passionate about teaching...

"when I can teach topics that I am interested in, that I have a lot of passion for, and that I have time to engage in dialogue with students about as well."

The teaching project allows students to...

"gain a better understanding of different approaches to conversation and hopefully be better prepared for future counseling situations."

My role in the teaching project...

“was to supervise the content of the counseling sessions and the overall project."

My goal...

“is more lively teaching with active student participation despite large group sizes."

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Idea generation

The idea of making videos is something we've had for years. We didn’t have enough time or money until now, though. There are too many students in the program for practical exercises in counseling, which involves a conversation between two people.  Very rarely did we have the opportunity to conduct a counseling session with real clients as part of the exercise.

Therefore, we wanted to develop an alternative that was feasible in terms of time and organization. There are already videos online on counseling techniques. However, these are mostly in English and are not nutrition-related. The application of process models for the quality-controlled implementation of nutrition interventions, such as the "German-Nutrition Care Process," which is now being established in Germany, has not been mentioned at all in available videos so far. Especially here, a video-based, interactive demonstration on a concrete case seemed like it would be very helpful. Thus came the idea of shooting these videos ourselves.

Leading the project were two scientific staff members at the institute and the department, both of whom are certified nutritionists. They both have Master's degrees in nutritional medicine and molecular nutritional sciences. One of the two is a part-time counselor at a clinic outpatient rehab facility.
Also involved were a student assistant with experience in video shooting and digital imaging, and two actresses who played the roles of the client and the counselor. Another employee supported the project on the technical side,  and I was responsible for supervision.

Project objective

The goal of the project was to make nutrition counseling something that the students could actually see and experience.
Experience is important because students do not come into contact with clients during their studies - with the exception of internships - and thus cannot practice nutrition counseling per se.

So we wanted to make videos about scenarios in nutrition counseling.

These were to be interactive and used to work out how a conversation between client and counselor would proceed.

The administrative requirements posed a challenge to the project. The biggest problem was the lack of flexibility for how we could use the available funds.

Current status/further steps/feedback/further development

The videos have been shot and are being edited. A total of seven scenes were shot. Five illustrate nutrition counseling approaches and techniques, and two scenes include the "German-Nutrition Care Process" or history taking.

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  “Experiencing” counseling

The goal of the project was to make nutrition counseling something that the students could actually see and experience. Experience is important because students do not come into contact with clients during their studies - with the exception of internships - and thus cannot practice nutrition counseling per se.

  Interactive

Interactive videos on scenarios in nutrition counseling as a basis for conversation between clients and counselors.

  Unique aspect

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What teaching concept do you find inspiring, what teaching concept would you like to try?

One digital concept that I find interesting is the Digital Learning Locations. For example, students go to the supermarket, to a restaurant, or to school and take digital lessons with them, so to speak. I could imagine this as a teaching concept in the future. Doing things on the spot, so to speak, and standing in front of the supermarket shelf, for example, is always much more attractive than just hearing everything in a lecture. An example would be to go to the supermarket with your tablet or cell phone and look around the cereal shelf. Questions should then be answered there, such as: "Why does a particular product have the Nutriscore A?"

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When you look back on the project support, what was particularly helpful for you?

"That was one of those projects that we always had in the back of our minds that we would do when we had time. Writing the application was not horribly difficult, as it was relatively informal.  That was helpful, so we actually had a chance to implement the project and then had to do it."

What tip would you give to people who are interested in support?

"Discuss in advance in great detail what will be funded and how.  It is important to clarify beforehand how much money is actually needed for what and what the external requirements are."

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