Step into a commercial kitchen for the first time, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
Giant walk-in coolers, industrial mixers and a maze of specialized tools can make
even a confident student hesitate.
Recognizing that many students have only ever seen standard home appliances, Conrad
N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership Lecturer Katie Ginapp recently
noticed a recurring challenge: Students were arriving in the lab lacking basic information
and knowledge of equipment locations, usage and safety protocols.
"We realized there was more we could do," Ginapp said. "We wanted to provide tools to boost their confidence in the commercial kitchen, so we brainstormed a way for them to explore and prepare before class even started."
To do that, Ginapp, her graduate student assistant, Liliana Soto, and Instructional Designer 3 Daniel Casanova teamed up to build a bridge between home comfort and commercial confidence — before the students ever set foot in the kitchen.
The Sysco Kitchen 360 Tour
The solution is a project Ginapp calls the Sysco Kitchen 360 Tour. The initiative was made possible after the team's Open Educational Practices proposal
was accepted by the University of Houston Open Education Incentive (OPEN) Program, which awarded them a top-tier $2,000 grant to support the creation of openly licensed
learning objects.
The OPEN Program supports the university’s strategic goal of providing an inclusive
educational experience by making programs more financially accessible for all students,
supporting creative teaching methods and enhancing experiential learning. For Ginapp's
students, this funding directly enriches their coursework in GHL 3420: Foodservice Operations and GHL 3197: Introduction to Baking and Pastry.
Using Articulate software, the team designed an immersive, interactive digital kitchen
tour. The grant marks an exciting milestone for the team, as Soto is one of the very
first graduate students to have work published for the initiative.
Integrated directly into Canvas, the self-guided tour allows students to virtually
navigate every workspace in the kitchen. They can click on smallwares, equipment and
appliances to interact with:
- Detailed photography: Visual layouts of chemical stations, ingredients and smallware closets captured on
a GoPro by Casanova.
- Video demonstrations: Hands-on video guides filmed by Casanova with Soto demonstrating proper equipment operation, measuring techniques and tasks like correctly filling a three-compartment sink.
The goal is to eliminate repetitive questions and give students the power to study, reference and build confidence asynchronously all year long. Following a successful trial run this past spring, Ginapp is officially implementing the tour this upcoming fall semester with assessments and an "equipment checkout" before students can dive into real recipes.
Transforming the Online Classroom
The innovation does not stop at the kitchen door. The success of this grant-funded
project has opened major possibilities for the college's online curriculum.
Ginapp is already brainstorming ways to adapt the Articulate software for her asynchronous
courses — specifically for her online purchasing class, which runs every other fall.
"No offense to the purchasing enthusiasts out there, but when it’s strictly online
without those dynamic, hands-on activities and demonstrations, the subject matter
can feel a bit dry," Ginapp said with a laugh.
To bridge that gap, plans are underway to build virtual escape rooms. For example,
online students might be dropped into a digital kitchen where they must hunt down
and click on every potential food safety hazard to unlock the next riddle.
"It gives a really interactive component so the online students can get the same experiences that the in-person students are able to get in the classes," Ginapp said.
By blending cutting-edge software with hands-on hospitality fundamentals, faculty members like Ginapp and innovators like Soto and Casanova are ensuring students — whether learning on campus or online — enter the industry fully prepared and confident.