Food as medicine (FAM) was a free to join 3 week course designed for a broad general interest appeal to everyone interested in food, nutrition and health.
At a time when food and nutrition information was at an all-time high, there was a lot of confusion and misinformation about food based recommendations for health.
FAM was of particular interest to healthcare professionals who were looking to have more evidenced-based information, to assist them in providing food-based recommendations to their patients.
Think global, act local – glocal.
Because the course was hosted by futureLearn, the learner cohort was global. The course explicitly focused on nutrition complexities and controversies, and the importance of evidence and how learners could best interpret nutrition guidelines from their respective jurisdiction.
The course framed this approach through the lens of an Australian experience and then carefully explained and extrapolated the nutrition concepts and ideas for the international context.
Designing and defining the observable FAM universe (2016-2022)
Using food as medicine in healthcare practice.
Building on the success of Food as Medicine MOOC and as an exploration of how they might act as a paid-for pathway, I led the design, development and delivery of a program of five nutrition related courses designed especially for healthcare professionals – endorsed by various bodies within the healthcare sector these courses could be completed individually or as a collected healthcare practice program.
This set of courses for healthcare professionals (including GPs, nurses and midwives) was designed to improve their knowledge of nutrition and health topics, and give them practical skills for providing simple nutrition and food based advice to patients.
The courses were intentionally designed so that learners would be able to collect CPD points for these courses, depending on their discipline and professional associations – to help learners evidence this I worked closely with the academic lead to design pre and post course learning activities and reporting.
An official YouTube channel for Monash’s FAM course on FutureLearn
With limited resources, we had to be selective with the number of additional features e.g., social media presence, that we offered as part of the extended course experience. I chose to create a YouTube for FAM because it enabled us to (workaround a technical issue of the platform and also) make additional course content e.g., feedback videos, extra helpings, fresh wraps, course promos and trailers available to non-learner and learners at the same time.
The relative low-maintenance affordances of the platform allowed for easy sharing outside of the course and embedding within the course, develop a profile and increase awareness of the course on FutureLearn, and more.
Course updates and information
Twitter was chosen as the most suitable social media platform for us to use to provide course updates and share additional information that may be of interest to our course learners, and others – it was often used to announce the release of a video on our YouTube channel.
Partnering with industry
The Monash University set of ‘Food as Medicine’ professional certificate courses were recognised by NNEdPro, as a pathway for doctors and other healthcare professionals to enter their International Academy of Nutrition Educators (IANE).
NNEdPro is a global centre for nutrition and health anchored at the University of Cambridge, working to improve nutrition-related health outcomes for patients.
Completing these professional certificate courses and a final assessment enabled doctors and healthcare professionals to apply for IANE membership, which gave access to a network of medical nutrition expertise, opportunities and initiatives through NNEdPro’s partnerships.
To be eligible for the assessment, learners needed to complete and purchase a certificate for at least two courses from the FAM universe.
