How a Nutrition Class Became One of UT’s Most Popular

When students enroll in courses a few weeks from now at The University of Texas at Austin, one highly popular course on the menu will have recently surpassed a key milestone. In just four years, more than 20,000 students have opted for this specific class.

Most have never stepped foot in classroom to attend.

The NTR 306: Fundamentals of Nutrition in-person course has been offered for a lot longer than four years, but in the fall of 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing and most in-person classes remaining online, Michele Hockett Cooper and Heather Leidy, both professors in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, took on the challenge of co-teaching nearly 1,000 non-nutrition majors about nutrients and their impact on health and well-being, all online and live-streamed from the Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS) studios in Mezes Hall. 

“We knew it would be popular, we just didn’t know how popular,” Hockett Cooper said.

This spring, they have more than 2,000 students enrolled.

Asjad Siddiqi had finished his sophomore year as a neuroscience major when he took the course over the summer. 

“I wouldn’t say that I cared very deeply about nutrition before I took the class,” Siddiqi explained, “but the way it’s taught, it pulls you in. The instructors are engaging, and it makes you very excited about the course material.”

Leidy describes the course as an “introduction into what nutrients are, how they impact health and well-being, and how to establish a healthy dietary pattern that’s personalized for each student.”

“Most students are highly interested in nutrition as it relates to health, sports, or just food in general,” Leidy said. “Plus, they hear so much on social media outlets about what we should or shouldn’t eat, they come in already interested.  Given this interest, we can weave in the scientific concepts, how to interpret scientific evidence, and how dietary recommendations are made.  In my opinion, nutrition is a great way to teach scientific concepts and principles in a very practical, everyday manner.”

When the instructors began teaching NTR 306 online, courses like it were still fairly new. Students were just happy to have any interaction given the COVID-19 pandemic, Leidy said, but over time, students began to expect more engagement.

In response to student feedback, Hockett Cooper and Leidy created interactive short segments within each lecture.  Some of these include “In Real Life” segments where the students find them walking the aisles of H-E-B, discussing post-exercise nutrition in Leidy’s garage gym, or having their children engage in tastes tests, comparing milk and milk alternatives.  There are “Ask the Dietitian” segments where local dietitians give their insight on popular diet trends and a “Things that Make You Go Hmmm” segment that breaks down nutrition myths.

Between videos, live question-and-answer sessions and thought-provoking presentations, the instructors, along with a small army of teaching assistants, keep their online students attentive, peppering classes with live online polls and lively chats.  Throughout the semester, Hockett Cooper and Leidy have debates about controversial topics related to current recommendations, supplement use and whether animal source foods should be eliminated from the diet.