Tag Archives: skills

WHAT WERE THE SPECIFIC NUTRITION EDUCATION AND PARENTING SKILLS TAUGHT DURING THE INTERVENTION

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The intervention aimed to help families adopt healthy eating and physical activity habits through 16 core sessions conducted over 6-9 months. The sessions were led by registered dietitians and covered topics such as:

Nutrition fundamentals: The basics of healthy eating were discussed based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate guidelines. Families learned about proper portion sizes, reading food labels, understanding calories and nutrients, making smart substitutions, and planning meals/snacks around the major food groups. Emphasis was placed on choosing whole, minimally processed foods.

Meal planning: Skills were taught for budget-friendly weekly meal planning that incorporates more fruits/veggies, lean proteins, whole grains and dairy. Families practiced weekly meal planning as a group activity.

Progressive goal setting: Families set small, graduated goals to work on between sessions, such as adding a fruit or vegetable to one meal per day or incorporating 30 minutes of activity 3 times per week. Goals focused on behavior changes rather than weight or appearance to reduce pressure.

Behavior modification techniques: Cognitive restructuring, stimulus control, problem solving, contingency management/reinforcement, and relapse prevention strategies were discussed. Families learned how habits form and practical techniques to modify eating/activity behaviors.

Parenting skills: Parents learned responsive feeding techniques based on child hunger/fullness cues instead of pressuring children to eat. Strategies included child involvement in shopping/preparation, modeling of behaviors, positive reinforcement of eating fruits/veggies or playing outside. Authoritative discipline techniques emphasizing healthy limits and choices were discussed.

Portion sizes: Interactive exercises using plates, boxes and photos taught accurate portion sizes for grains, proteins and especially energy-dense/added sugar foods. Portion distortion was addressed.

Dining out: Skills to make healthier choices when eating away from home at restaurants, fast food or social events were covered. Modifying common recipes, asking for sauces/dressings on the side and budget-friendly restaurant swaps were discussed.

Physical activity: Following evidenced-based recommendations, families learned about the health benefits of reducing small screen time activities like TV/video games and replacing them with fun interactive games and sports anytime activities. Walking programs were started.

Stress and emotional eating: Stress management techniques like deep breathing, journaling and relaxation were taught. Coping strategies other than eating were discussed to manage emotions. The difference between physical and emotional hunger was highlighted.

Support systems and community resources: Strategies empowered families to utilize social support systems through pairing with other participant families. Food access and physical activity resources in their community were identified to encourage long-term sustainability.

Weekly grocery store tours: Led by a registered dietitian, families experienced grocery stores together to locate lower calorie options and healthier alternatives to frequent buys. Sales flyers were evaluated through a nutrition lens.

Cooking demonstrations: Professionally-led cooking classes introduced families to quick, low-cost and delicious recipes meeting intervention guidelines. Tastings encouraged trying new fruits/veggies/seasonings.

Goal setting review: Progress towards individualized behavior change goals set in early sessions were evaluated at each class through group discussion. Additional strategies to address barriers provided individualized troubleshooting. Supportive accountability to work towards lifestyle changes as a family unit was cultivated.

The multi-component intervention focused on intensive behavior modification through nutrition education, parenting skills and hands-on activities to equip families with sustainable skills and community resources to adopt healthier lifestyles long-term. Evaluation showed this comprehensive approach was significantly more effective at producing behavior changes and weight outcomes compared to standard recommendations alone.

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER SKILLS THAT STUDENTS CAN DEMONSTRATE THROUGH THE EXCEL MODULES 1-3 SAM CAPSTONE PROJECT?

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Students can demonstrate their ability to design and create effective worksheets and workbooks. Through the capstone project, students apply the skills learned in modules 1-3 to create comprehensive Excel files to solve business problems or analyze data. They must think critically about how to structure the worksheets and workbooks to be clear, easy to understand, and functional for the intended users. This allows students to showcase skills in areas like formatting cells and sheets effectively, utilizing formulas and functions properly, managing multiple worksheets within a single workbook, filtering and sorting data logically, and more. Being able to design workbooks that are both aesthetic and practical is an important workplace competency.

The project provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate analytical and problem-solving abilities. They must analyze the given scenario and determine what key questions need to be answered or problems solved. This involves conceptualizing the overall approach, deciding what type of calculations, visualizations, or autres are required. Students then apply the appropriate Excel tools and techniques to analyze the data, draw insights, and surface meaningful conclusions to address the objectives. Some may conduct things like data modeling, what-if scenario modeling, statistical analysis, charting and visualization, or other advanced methods. The ability to analyze unstructured problems and devise data-driven solutions is a valuable asset for any professional.

Through the SAM project, students can illustrate self-direction, independence, and project management skills. They are responsible for completing the multi-step capstone independently from start to finish. This requires self-motivation, planning ahead, adhering to deadlines, troubleshooting issues, and ensuring high quality. Some students may need to research additional Excel functions or methodologies required beyond the core modules. Managing their own workflow and schedule to complete the open-ended project exhibits traits of responsibility, dependability, and work ethic valued by employers. It also prepares students for self-managed work in future roles.

The capstone allows students to highlight communication skills. Some create detailed documentation like a readme file, detailed notes within the workbook, or a presentation. This helps ensure users without prior context can easily navigate and understand the solutions and insights provided. Documentation skills are crucial both for sharing results with stakeholders as well as enabling future readers to grasp the project background, methodologies, and conclusions at a glance. Students may also give an oral presentation explaining their approach and findings using the workbook, building public speaking and presentation abilities. Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, are always in high demand.

By completing the Excel SAM project, students have an opportunity to showcase achievement of the core learning objectives from Modules 1 through 3. Reviewers are able to glean an overall sense of the student’s mastery level with Excel’s fundamental to intermediate functions, formulas, charts, pivot tables, filtering, what-if analysis and more. For example, students may demonstrate skills like proficiently using Excel’s core calculation functions to analyze various datasets, constructing PivotTables to quickly summarize and inspect information, or employing IF/AND/OR logic properly in formulas. The capstone provides a complete portfolio piece for students to highlight their breadth of Excel acumen gained through the foundational modules.

Through a well-designed SAM capstone project, students have a platform to demonstrate an array of valuable skills beyond basic Excel proficiency. Traits like analytical problem-solving, self-direction, communication abilities, and competency with an extensive suite of tools can all be on display. Prospective employers seeking experience with Excel and a track record of success on open-ended challenges will find the project portfolio highly relevant. It gives students an edge in translating their learning into real-world application—a win for skills development, career preparation and future opportunities alike.

CAN YOU RECOMMEND ANY RESOURCES OR TUTORIALS FOR LEARNING ADVANCED EXCEL SKILLS?

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Free Online Excel Tutorials from ExcelIsFun:

The ExcelIsFun YouTube channel contains hundreds of free Excel video tutorials that cover a wide range of advanced topics. The videos are clear, well-explained, and help you learn by actually working through examples. Some advanced topics covered include VBA, PivotTables, Power Query, Dashboarding, financial modeling techniques and more. Having both a video and written component help reinforce the lessons. The channel has been teaching Excel skills to hundreds of thousands of users for over a decade so it’s a very reliable resource.

In addition to the videos, the ExcelIsFun website at excelisfun.com contains free written tutorials and downloadable Excel workbooks for many of the topics covered in the videos. Being able to read explanations and follow along in your own workbook is extremely valuable for learning complex functions and techniques.

LinkedIn Learning Excel Courses:

Previously known as Lynda.com, LinkedIn Learning offers thousands of video tutorials taught by industry experts on a wide variety of software and business topics. They have several in-depth courses focused exclusively on Excel that are well worth the reasonable subscription cost. Courses like “Excel Skills for Business” and “Excel Data Analysis” delve into advanced functions, formulas, charts, automation through VBA and data modeling techniques.

Since the platform is focused on professional and career development, the courses teach practical skills that you can directly apply on the job. Unlike many free resources, there is no filler – every lesson is focused on helping you master valuable Excel topics. The videos can also be sped up to 1.5x or 2x speeds to efficiently learn complex skills.

Udemy Excel Courses:

Udemy has hundreds of Excel courses available on every topic imaginable. While many are quite basic, they do offer some in-depth courses taught by experts that focus exclusively on advanced features. Courses like “Advanced Excel” by Justin Bishop and “Financial Modeling in Excel” by Wall Street Prep both run 10+ hours and teach Skills like Power Pivot, Power Query, macros, financial functions and more in great detail with real-world examples.

What makes Udemy courses valuable is that they are more structured learning experiences compared to random YouTube videos. Every course has hours of high-definition video lessons, downloadable course files and instructors that are available to provide assistance. While courses sometimes cost $10-200, they are often discounted to $10-20 during frequent sales, providing excellent value for the hours of learning.

Excel Exposure – Website and Blog:

Run by working professional Joel Lee, Excel Exposure is a great free resource for advanced Excel topics. The blog contains hundreds of in-depth written tutorials on functions, automation, reporting and analysis techniques. It cuts through the filler to focus only on practical skills.

What sets Excel Exposure apart is that Joel also provides the step-by-step workbook examples that accompany each tutorial. This is extremely valuable for learning complex functions and formulas – you can’t just read about them, you need to try them out in your own files. The ability to download and follow along with the working samples makes it easy to absorb advanced Excel skills.

Coursera Excel Courses:

Coursera partners with top universities to offer online courses on just about any topic. They have some wonderful advanced Excel courses available absolutely free for audit as well as for a small fee if you need a verified certificate of completion.

Classes like “Data Analysis with Excel” from the University of Toronto are extremely comprehensive – taking dozens of hours to walk through cases studies, functions and formulas to perform powerful data analysis and visualization. Since the courses come from reputed institutions, you know the material and skills are very applicable in professional settings.

By leveraging free resources like ExcelIsFun YouTube tutorials, Excel Exposure tutorials and blogs, and Udemy’s frequent low-cost advanced Excel courses, anyone can learn best practices for automation, visualization, analysis and all the most useful advanced Excel skills from experienced instructors. Moving between video, written and hands-on workbook examples makes complex topics easy to understand and apply in your own work. I hope these resources provide a great starting point for your Excel learning journey!

WHAT ARE SOME KEY SKILLS, THAT STUDENTS CAN DEVELOP THROUGH BUSINESS CAPSTONE PROJECTS?

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Business capstone projects provide students with an invaluable opportunity to develop a wide range of skills that are highly sought after by employers. By undertaking a significant final year project that often simulates a real-world business problem or challenge, students are able to gain practical experience that allows them to cultivate both hard and soft skills.

Some of the key technical or hard skills that students can develop through a business capstone project include research skills, data analysis abilities, financial analysis proficiency, and technology skills. Completing an independent research project forces students to refine their research methods to comprehensively investigate a business topic or issue. This involves skills like developing research questions, evaluating academic sources, synthesizing information, and citing sources properly. Many capstone projects also involve collecting, cleaning, and analyzing primary or secondary datasets to gain insights. This grows students’ data analysis and data visualization skills using tools like Excel, SPSS, or Tableau. Financial aspects are common in business projects too, so students learn how to prepare forecasts, evaluate costs/profits, and assess the viability of ideas – building financial analysis and modeling capabilities. Plus, with the explosion of technology use in companies, capstones offer a opportunity for students to include coding, web development, CRM systems, or other technologies into their work.

In addition to tangible technical skills, business capstones profoundly enhance students’ soft skills and career readiness. One of the most important benefits is that it provides authentic project management experience. Students have to define objectives, develop a work plan, assign responsibilities, establish timelines and milestones, track progress, and ensure goals are achieved – just as they would on real-world projects. This grows abilities in goal setting, planning, coordination, accountability, and meeting deadlines. Capstone projects also demand superior communication skills as students interface with peers, faculty advisors, and outside experts during their work. They hone communication methods through presentations, reports, proposals, and other deliverables. Working independently on a long-term project with limited guidance requires students to demonstrate self-motivation, time management, problem solving, and the ability to adapt to challenges or changes – all valued leadership qualities. Many projects involve liaising with industry partners too, exposing students to networking, stakeholder management, and applying their learning in a quasi-professional context.

Some common business capstone formats focus on consulting projects where student teams are assigned to an organization and must recommend solutions after thoroughly analyzing the case. This interaction with real companies and clients cultivates client-facing skills while exposing students to common business problems and corporate cultures. Consulting capstones teach competencies like listening, critical thinking, solution crafting, clear articulation of recommendations, and addressing stakeholder concerns. Students are able to showcase their acquired business knowledge by devising approaches that could realistically benefit the host firm. Other capstone models entail developing a new venture plan from scratch. Here, students learn entrepreneurial skills in opportunity recognition, market assessments, developing business models, operationalizing concepts, and raising financial support for ideas – equipping them for startup roles or intrapreneurship. Regardless of the specific capstone structure, all projects provide invaluable real-world learning that cannot be replaced by traditional coursework alone.

Business capstone projects offer unique and transformative learning experiences that nurture both technical and soft skills far beyond the conventional classroom. By taking on a substantial project that mirrors professional work, students gain practical experience in areas like research, analysis, financial skills, technology use, client management, entrepreneurship, communication, project management and leadership. Capstones challenge students to apply their business education to real problems while simultaneously developing transferable abilities highly coveted by recruiters. The multi-dimensional skill sets obtained through these projects provide a distinct competitive advantage for students entering the job market or graduate studies after graduation. A strong capstone experience equips students to make immediate value-adding contributions in various business careers.