Teaching and Supervision

Dr Rajshri Roy teaches and supervises students across undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Teaching Philosophy

Describe your approach to teaching

''I aim to spark student enthusiasm, provide motivation and a strong foundation for future learning. My goal is to create an interactive classroom environment in which students enjoy learning by freely sharing their understanding, ideas and questions.

My past experiences as a student have influenced my teaching. My psychology professor always sparked curiosity in her students by engaging us in experiential learning—building knowledge by doing. She made us invested in the conversation and we retained far more than we did when simply told something in a lecture. I have been influenced by her style of exploring the theory and looking for mediums that would appeal to the many different learning styles in a class through simulations, role plays, project-based learning (PBL), or any other immersive educational experience.

According to David Kolb, a typical experiential learning cycle consists of four stages: action, reflection, conceptualization, and application and not a didactic experience. Emotion gives us long term memory and therefore assume that if students are enjoying themselves, they will retain the information presented. I value listening, interacting and helping students turn ideas into practice through engagement. The signature pedagogy for the nutrition discipline is PBL. This helps with long-term recall, clinical reasoning, and self-directed learning. My teaching conforms to this pedagogy; for example, PBL helps my students solidify the link between classroom learning and clinical practice. It promotes higher order and critical thinking skills. The experience, or action, serves to anchor students in a common context that they can then reflect on together. During or after the reflection phase, I help students identify and name their observations as specific knowledge or skills. In the last phase, students apply what they’ve learned to new contexts.

I view my students as the most integral part of the teaching and learning process. I seek to foster in students a passion for learning and an aptitude for turning theory into practice. I work with my students by listening to, learning from and understanding their learning styles. I ensure that students—not me, the teacher—do the intellectual heavy-lifting of extracting meaning from experience.''

Teaching Pedagogy

''My teaching philosophy aims to create an interactive classroom in which students enjoy learning by sharing their understanding and ideas. I considered ways to innovate pedagogy and use digital tools as I believe that students should learn to work in teams to disseminate science to general public through creativity.

When I first started as a lecturer, traditional assignment, in one course I were to teach, involved students following a fad diet individually and analysing their own intake using a nutrition analysis software. They wrote a magazine expert- opinion article aimed at the general public and an essay about their experiences on the diet.

My aim was to transition my assignment from static learning to dynamic learning in accordance with my teaching philosophy. I wanted the students to:

Communicate evidence-based messages appropriately and responsibly utilising media and social media.
Apply principles of team leadership, teamwork dynamics and group processes to support the collaborative practice.

I tried to achieve this by redesigning the assignment and getting students interacting with digital content. In the re- designed assignment, students are assigned to teams, follow a fad diet, develop a nutritionally adequate recipe, analyse the recipe and create a nutrition information panel. They present the recipe in an infographic, create an instructional cooking video, and record a podcast expert-discussion with their team reflecting on their experiences of following the diet.

To find out whether this worked, I added a peer/assessment review component, where students review their team member contributions, each team’s creative content and an open-ended question asks ‘’what did you like about this assignment? What modifications should be considered?’’ The best creative contents also have the opportunity to be showcased on various social media channels and audience engagement has been measured.

The course I direct, follows the flipped classroom model and focuses on out of class time and effort on lower learning such as acquisition of basic knowledge and in-class time and effort on higher level learning such as applying, analysing, evaluating, creating. Students read supporting materials, watched videos, or recorded lectures, took notes, completed study guides, or completed quizzes as pre-readings before class. In class, students work through case studies applying concepts they learn in pre-readings, evaluated nutrition interventions, analyse, or compare strategies or approaches and create summaries, written materials, presentations and infographics in groups tutorials and workshops. Teaching style in my course is student-centred and active for both students and lecturers.''

Teaching

Course Director

DIETETIC 708 : Professional Skills 2

this course progresses the knowledge and skills required to develop competency in the nutrition and dietetic care process and introduces the principles of food service management ranging from food safety and hygiene to the development of menus for therapeutic diets.

FOODSCI 200 : Food Composition and Nutrition

My lecture(s) focus on introduction to food and nutrition science to undergraduate nutrition students.

POPLHLTH 206 : Life Cycle Nutrition

My lecture(s) focus on background and introduction to the study of public health nutrition particularly the influence of the food environment.

POPLHLTH 306 : Health Promotion 2

My lecture(s) focus on health promotion using food environment interventions from a political and global perspective.

MEDSCI 101G: Environmental Threats to Human Health

My lecture(s) focus on health impacts of diet and lifestyle behaviours on chronic disease risk.

POPLHLTH 765: Nutrition Interventions in Public Health

My lecture(s) focus on issues and inequities in population nutrition, broader influences on population diets, and how to develop and assess population nutrition interventions which address these aspects.

MEDSCI 709: Nutrition in Health and Disease

My lecture(s) focus on theoretical knowledge and skills to evaluate and disseminate evidence-based research on the role of food environments in health and disease.

DIETETIC 707: Professional Skills 1

My teaching focus in this course includes the principles of food service systems and public health to optimise nutrition, health, and well-being.

DIETETIC 709A/B : Professional Skills 3

I supervise students in clinics on the dietetic process as it applies to clinical and dietetic practice such as effective consultation skills using motivational interviewing to optimise nutrition, health, well-being for individuals.

DIETETIC 793A/B: Thesis

Master's of Nutrition and Dietetics Thesis supervision.

Clinical Supervision

Describe your most influential contribution to supervision

''I supervise students in clinics (DIETETIC 709 Professional Skills 3) on the dietetic process as it applies to clinical and dietetic practice, such as effective consultation skills using motivational interviewing to optimise nutrition, health, well-being for individuals. My most influential contributions to clinical supervision in student-lead nutrition and dietetic clinics have been the following:

I have established a structure of supervision (formalised and informal feedback) with an interactive learning approach and constant communication. In 2017, I supervised a student in clinic who was dealing with with significant anxiety about being in a clinic setting and was struggling to meet her clinical competencies. Using regular communication and feedback, I helped the student understand their support options at UOA, and we developed strategies that helped them cope with fear and overwhelm while providing the best possible experience for the student, their patients, and other students. Going forward, I include a student preparation session prior to the students starting clinics and send de-identified client referral details to the students before-hand to make sure students have a chance to prepare for the clients they will see 2-3 days in advance.

To demonstrate that a supervisory intervention has a direct effect on the patient/client, I have been conducting research within the student-lead nutrition and dietetic clinics. The results of this ongoing study are being used to evaluate the performance of students and to determine how effective supervision in student lead clinics are in preparing students and how clinic supervision needs to be improved.

I have been appointed the Public Health Domain Leader since 2019 as an expert in the area of public health nutrition and dietetics to oversee the supervision of students on public health placements.''

Research Supervision

In progress

Doctoral Students

Jessica Malloy (PhD), Primary Supervisor – "Health Promotion for Young Adults using Youth Codesign of a Social Media Program’’
Xingbo Li (PhD), Primary Supervisor – "How Do They Eat? An Ethnographic Study of Student Eating Behaviour in a Chinese university compared to a New Zealand university.’’
Anna Worthington (PhD) Secondary Supervisor – "Incorporating end-user centric approaches to the design, implementation, and evaluation of nutrition interventions.’’

Masters Students

Dietetic 793 MSC, 2022 - ''Promoting Healthier Food Portions with the Application of Augmented Reality (AR)''
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2022 - ''Mapping the Effects of Social and Economic Factors on Chronic Diseases –A Comparative Analysis of New Zealand and Australia''
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2022 - "How Do They Eat? An Ethnographic Study of Student Eating Behaviour in a New Zealand university''

Completed

Masters Students

Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "Is it possible to enhance the confidence of student dietitians prior to clinical placements? A design-based research."
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 - "Habitual dietary patterns, nutrient intake, and selection of Mediterranean-style food items among New Zealanders (NZ MED)."
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "Content validity, face validity and internal consistency of the Healthy Lunch Scoring Tool"
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "Unhealthy Food at Your Fingertips : A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Takeaway Outlets on Ubereats, New Zealand."
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 - "What Type of Recipes and Videos will Address Barriers, Improve Attitudes, and Motivate Young Adults to Cook with Vegetables? "
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "Prevalence of weight bias amongst New Zealand Registered Dietitians And its effects on dietetic practice - A pilot study"
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "The Intersection of Tech and Nutrition: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Uber Eats"
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2021 – "Efficacy of Student-led dietetic clinics: Evaluation of client satisfaction and nutritional outcomes.’’
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2020 – "Healthy Eating on a Budget? Price incentives within university food outlets and their impact on the purchasing behaviour of young adults"
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2019 – "Allergy Management in a University Foodservice Setting’’
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2019 – “Patient Satisfaction and Outcomes in a Student-Led Dietetic Clinic - A Pilot Study’’
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2019 – “Symbols for Change – Does labelling of healthy foods on menus using symbols promote better choices at the point-of-purchase at university food outlets?”
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2019 – “Grab Goodness vending : a pilot research program to stimulate healthy snacking in tertiary education settings”
Dietetic 793 MSC, 2018 – “Do health policies established by the food industry and associated companies influence their work environment for the benefit of employees?”