Taste is a didactic approach: enabling students to achieve learning goals

Teaching does not necessarily condition learning, and specific didactic elements do not necessarily condition the best learning outcome; this also applies to ‘food and meal’ lessons in schools. Teachers’ didactic reflections usually reflect the content and form of the teaching, as well as a number of expectations to students’ learning. This article presents the results of a new quantitative study that investigates students’ work with taste in relation to their own expected learning in the subject Food Knowledge, viewed in the light of three didactic elements: motivation, student participation and innovation in school. The method is a questionnaire among students (N= 769) who have competed in Food Fight, a competition that forms part of Food Knowledge. The connection between taste and learning is a relatively unexplored field, and the analysis in this article indicates that the experience of working with taste in Food Knowledge may have an effect on students’ expected learning that is equally positive – or even more so – as that of known didactic elements like student participation and innovation. Therefore, teachers need to create balance between didactic elements and remember to incorporate taste as a didactic approach in enabling students to achieve learning goals.