On Teacher's day 2022: 3i and 3c model for teaching in higher education

Having spent fifteen years teaching
post-graduate students of public health and health management, I have become a
provider of information to all students by helping them to know and do more, a
facilitator of learning to most by encouraging them to inquire deeper and
wider, and a mentor and fellow-learner for some by igniting our collective
insights. This shift in focus from information to insight enabled me to help
the students contextualize the content - which heavily focuses on science and
systems – in the light of values associated with self and society.  I believe this conceptual framework of
information-inquires-insights (3i) and Connecting Contents to Contexts (3c) is
important for value-based higher education in the information age.  A caveat before explaining these in detail:
these are results of my teaching-learning interactions with public health and
healthcare management students, but may also be relevant for other
fraternities.

Information; facts about a situation, person,
event, etc.

The traditional role of a teacher/professor is that
of a provider of information using a board or presentation slides.  In this conventional mode, the provider speaks
and the receivers hear; in some cases, the provider talks with the receivers who
listen with interest. In these unidirectional power-laden exchanges, the
knowledge, skills, and competencies get transferred from the teacher to the
students, who by memorizing the information become an extension of their teachers.
 Although conventional teaching in some
faculties uses case-study-based discussions, the focus remains on exchanges of
information on science and systems, with limited deliberations on the
understanding of self and the role of diversity in the society of which the self
is an integrated element. While traditional teaching in medical and management
streams can be useful in imparting knowledge and skills of science and systems,
flipped classroom approaches in value-based and welfare-oriented public health
education can generate avenues for meaningful open-ended discussions around the
role of self in using science and systems for the betterment of society. in
doing this constructively.  By recording
information in the form of audio-visual lectures that students can go through
beforehand, the teachers/professors redefine their roles from mere information
providers to facilitators of learning through a deeper exploration of students'
thought processes during classroom interactions. As the information has been
already delivered through pre-recorded lectures, the teachers can spend time
and effort to improve the student's ability to understand the content by
solving their doubts.  In addition, by
pushing the students to go through existing curricular information through
prerecorded lectures in their flexibility of space and time, the classroom time
and space becomes available for meaningful interaction around inquiries and
insights and connecting the content of the teaching deeply to larger and wider
contexts.

Inquiry; the process of asking a question or
asking for information

Conventionally, the teacher asks the questions
that students must answer, in the classroom, during assessments, and the examination.
 Traditional teaching does not encourage
students to question the content, form, purpose, and approach to
education.  This approach to learning needs
an overhaul because the college-going students must question to understand the
concepts and their applicability better.  These require the 3c exploration of
'connecting the contents to contexts'.  The information-based curriculum must be
checked for its application in different settings across not only space and
time but socio-cultural and politico-economic realities of the societies.  The student must learn to ask a variety of
things about the context in which the tools and techniques, prescriptions and interventions
etc. are to be applied.  This exploration
would make the information more meaningful and the student would develop
insights into a variety of inter-connected concepts.  The new-age teachers and professors must
themselves learn to help the student ask, and then explore answers
collectively.

Insights; a clear and deep understanding of a complicated
problem or situation

As a student, while they acknowledge the
ignorance about science and systems, they must also accept the ignorance about
self and society.   In addition to merely
receiving information through a variety of interactions, the students must
learn to develop their meanings out of this information.  By critically questioning the information in
the light of self and society, they can develop multiple meanings of complex
problems to understand the nuances better, before exploring a wide range of
existing and new solutions.  The insights
may also make them aware of their ignorance about the society for which they
intend to work, and thus push them to seek more information from the
beneficiaries through meaningful inquiries. This focus on information as means to an end in
the form of insights would also create a level-playing field which will empower
the community.  The students equipped
with new insights will then return to the classroom to inquire more about the
science and system, and their inquiries will push the professors to seek more
information and develop newer insights. This way the virtuous cycle of
value-based and value-added education can continue.

In the era of information excess, the professors
in higher education must become ‘guide by the side’ rather than the ‘sage on
the stage’ to help the students focus on ignorance over knowledge, insights
over information, and people and communities over providers and systems.  The 3i and 3c model can help in becoming a
better version of teachers rather than a bigger version.