By Benjamin Lyngdoh
Teaching-learning is the heartbeat of society. It ensures that society sustains and progresses while staying relevant to the changing times. The world is changing fast and with it the entire dynamics of a productive workforce. Theory and knowledge are no longer enough. Skill and practice is the demand of the day. This is the raw fact of contemporary times and teaching-learning has to live up to it. In this column the debate is not about whether teaching-learning should adapt to the changing world or whether teaching-learning should direct how the world must be. The focus is to move with the times amidst the push and pull factors.
Text book
The age of the text book is dead. It is largely seen that from colleges onwards students are buying text books at a decreasing rate. This includes e-books which are now made available by all leading publishers. Hardly anyone carries a book to class. The decline in the ownership of the good old text book can be widely attributed to the freely available content in the digital space. Google provides results on a search button. Most of the results are good and of high use-value. As a result, students now possess all study materials in their gadgets. On a single topic they have multiple reading materials. This has also contributed towards a decreased visit to the library. These developments might seem unhealthy. However, on closer view they are advantageous. Not everyone can afford to buy a text book. The freely available content is a blessing for such. Multiple reading materials means a broader understanding of topics which then demands of the teacher to upscale continuously, ask contemporary questions and have rich discussions. The digital space demands more of the teacher than the student. Most students already understand the concept of a topic through self-study. This is where teaching has to migrate from ‘what and how’ into the ‘why and its application’.
A curious teacher
The actual need of contemporary times is to ignite the curiosity of students. For this to really happen, the teacher has to ignite his/her own curiosity levels first. The student is only as good as the teacher. Teaching has to exit the boundaries of the classroom and fuse with the ground realities. This is not possible without a curious teacher. Some quick checks, the level of curiosity can be seen in the quality of the question paper to check whether a teacher is open to new ideas or if a teacher becomes angry towards unconventional questions/answers, etc. Many students say that they learn more from what teachers do rather than what they say. There can be no bigger eye-opener for the teaching community than this. Now, the advent of chat boxes (like Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is spoon feeding all information on the go. Questions are transformed into answers in seconds. The bigger problem arises when teachers use these chat boxes for class delivery. The challenge now is to take curiosity to levels where these tools cannot help. For example, they will give general answers to ‘problems of business funding’, but not on the specific/localised context of say Shillong or Meghalaya. Now, this is the available space for nurturing curiosity.
Open book examination
Assessments and examinations have to move from ‘testing of knowledge’ towards ‘testing of application of knowledge’. Marking students on the basis of retention ability is flawed. One may have a good memory and is able to write all the answers, but this is meaningless if one does not have the competencies to apply it in practice. This makes the case for open book examinations. Let the students freely find the meaning of the question by referring real time to study materials, but the real test is whether one is able to understand it in a certain context and explain practicality/applicability. When this writer was at St. Anthony’s College, the teacher would teach how to calculate correlation involving a series of steps. Now, correlation is computed by software in seconds. But the real issues lie in the interpretation and the application of correlation in a specified context. This is the need of the hour for teaching-learning. The most recent case of open book examination was during the covid-19 pandemic. The question pattern was different than normal by focussing more on practicality/application. In most cases, it was found that the answers were of good quality depicting good understanding. The answers were much better as compared to normal times with normal questions and rote answers.
Teacher selection
The question that needs answering is how can eligible and dedicated teachers be absorbed into the profession? Teaching-learning will not improve unless the right stock of human resources is in the fold. The basic problem is the excessive importance given to personal job interviews. It will be more productive and fair if in specialised employments (like teaching) personal interviews are disbanded. This is because anyone can be the most intelligent person with utmost dedication in 40-50 minutes of personal interview. One can easily show all the impressive qualities of hard work, empathy, care, honesty, ethics, integrity, initiative-taking, etc in 40-50 minutes. When absorbed through interviews the reality may then become quite the opposite. This is where teaching-learning fails. It is best if teachers are tentatively selected only on the basis of a written test. It becomes fair and square. Then use a probation period of 1-2 years to observe and evaluate the teaching/research performance using certain standards of best practices. This assessment over a certain period of time provides the best basis of final decision-making if the person is to be selected or absorbed permanently or not. This shall ensure the right person in the right job.
Mark sheet is one-dimensional
The main anomaly of a mark sheet is that it does not reflect the entire gamut of abilities of the students. Well, at the same time it tends to hide the weaknesses too. It can be fairly argued that a mark sheet represents only 25% of the effectiveness. The other 75% are remaining factors and abilities which do not figure at all in the CV of a student. If teaching-learning is to be holistic covering various areas of co-curricular, extra-curricular, hobbies, talents, skills and competencies, then so too has to be the evaluation. A simple mark sheet is not enough. What is needed is a 360 degree framework which will evaluate a student holistically. Then we will find that one is more equipped for some other competency apart from maths or science or literature, etc. Take entrepreneurship for example. One can write wonderful answers and explain all theories and nuances but in truth may have no practical ability at all when it comes to its applicability in start-ups. It can be vice versa for someone else. Now, decide for yourselves which is better and how a mark sheet is fair in this aspect.
In the end, in contemporary times it is imperative that the plans, policies and strategies are made student-centric. This is owed to the students and society. (The writer teaches at NEHU; Email – [email protected])