Features
DCI Perspective
May/Jun 2008 —
Vol. 2,
Iss. 3
Redefining “Collaboration”—DCI Initiates Global Learning
(Hony) Brig Dr Anil Kohli
 |
(Hony) Brig Dr Anil Kohli
President, Dental Council of India |
|
Opportunities to participate in global health
education are numerous and expanding. The
foundation of science has been built on a
history of cultural and academic interchanges, and now both students and faculty are
contributing to the science of global oral
health. The primary aim of this statutory body (the Dental Council of India) has been to use available resources to
provide incentives for divergent groups to
begin exchanging ideas and working together
around global health issues.
The Dental Council of India (DCI) is pleased to be
working with various institutions and
universities in the international Student
Exchange Agreement. This program—and others like it—is a key
component in the ongoing “internationalization” of
India’s dental education. The DCI has been supporting initiatives to increase the number of international student and
faculty exchange programs.
In today’s world, there are opportunities for
“virtual learning,” pioneered by far-sighted educators and
software developers who have identified the
importance of helping students learn with and from one another across
distances. These collaborative opportunities provide unprecedented
advantages to students, and eventually to the
communities where they will serve. Educational models that assume that online learning has the same format as classroom situations limit these opportunities, and leadership is
necessary to steer some institutions into these
new standards. Student communication and
interaction is crucial for improving learning outcomes, and the Student Exchange Program initiated by the DCI is one method of supporting these interactions.
Skills in dentistry cannot be taught by a single
course nor a single instructor, and even with the advent of numerous institutions in India, rarely does
traditional education emphasize collaboration.
How many colleges are providing the skills necessary to advance collaboration? Also, while it is indeed important to keep abreast with technology and
science, during the course of learning students
will naturally imbibe cultural values also.
A classroom most often is construed to be a specific,
physical space in which communication flows
from expert to student. Collaboration widens
this space, endowing knowledge with the added
value of human interactions. It gives students the chance to assess their
own abilities within a broader context.
During these collaborative efforts, the DCI attempts
to provide students with multiple opportunities
to learn, work, and observe. This expansion in opportunities will
surely result in more confident students, ones
who have been exposed to a range of standards in diverse facilities and curriculum. For example, students may apply
concepts or cultural variations that they have
learned overseas. These possibilities would also open up for faculty who
have not previously had the opportunity to participate in cultural or
scientific exchanges. They may be energized,
and develop online teaching programs or e-classrooms
as a result of international or national exchange programs.
Thus the DCI is motivating a whole new generation of
students and faculty—who otherwise may
have been reluctant—to participate in ventures, which surely will
open up a multitude of opportunities in terms of curricula.
By initiating collaboration with other universities
and institutions, the DCI intends to:
- Change the
conventional classroom (teacher/student) approach to promote contact
among learners who are more diverse culturally
and geographically.
- Expand collaborative
opportunities to allow students to compile
and analyze data, building on each other’s efforts, to access updated research and clinical techniques.
Exchange programs have certain singular advantages
beyond the sharing of information. Students and faculty are exposed to variations in theories and methods, and the process of group dynamics becomes a catalyst for further explorations. New
learning patterns develop as information is
exchanged across peers or through groups of
facilitators and recipients.
The objective of the DCI has been to break down educational barriers to engage students who offer different
learning perspectives, while eradicating
geographic barriers to help students examine
and evaluate scientific and cultural knowledge. In this environment, a virtual community of researchers is created, with an expanded body of knowledge to construct common platforms for understanding and exchange.
Students operate at corresponding levels, trying to
fathom similarities and differences at first through individual experience, then within their group. Many of them will realize that
similar techniques have different
interpretations in various student communities.
Science is dynamic, and its concepts are bound
to change across international barriers. The DCI initiative is an attempt
to broaden healthcare education beyond rote learning,
as students are encouraged to observe, analyze, and identify areas to explore more deeply. The faculty involved also will have parallel learning opportunities by observing and
interacting with the students. The DCI is
spearheading a new spirit of collaboration with
Tufts University. We look forward to discovering common areas of interest
in pursuing future research involving not only
students but also faculty exchange programs.
The virtual classroom is the direction of the future.
E-learning is also one of the prospective
teaching tools for consideration in a large developing nation such as
India. Travel costs are often an issue for study abroad programs, but the
DCI has made a priority of offering those students who are unable to travel
opportunities for international learning and
cultural understanding. These innovative
solutions offer unique experiences—different from their
institutions—to all levels of the educational community. Thus a
country such as India develops a cost-effective pedagogy, thereby broadening learning and application perspectives.
Collaboration is not only international, it is also
interdisciplinary. As we are aware, new
emphasis on oral health is stretching the
boundaries of academia and encouraging fundamental shifts in the concept of
interdisciplinary collaboration in dentistry.
As such, all disciplines are being called on to participate in the
improvement of oral healthcare services. The DCI has made every attempt to identify and promote interdisciplinary
programs to reduce
disparities in oral healthcare access. It doesn’t end there, new ideas are constantly
necessary to bring these initiatives to the
next level. Our mission is to close the gap between the rural population in India, who suffer extensively without
outreach, and the relatively healthy urban population, who have better
access to more modern healthcare services.
Thus, the DCI has
created resources for the dental
fraternity to facilitate a better
understanding of issues of diversity and inequality.
Collaboration is expected to have material results, to address the
causes of, and provide solutions for, the alarming disparities in oral health around the
country.
The future of dentistry and dental education cannot be
separated from the impact of globalization. We
cannot move forward without taking full
advantage of international collaboration to increase
our knowledge exponentially. Our strategy is fundamental: exchanging, and thereby increasing, knowledge within the global dental education community will result in
worldwide improvement in overall health.
With more than 250 dental schools, India will surely be central to providing low-cost access to
research that will eventually impact oral
healthcare strategy in developing countries.
Our efforts will compound expertise and intellectual
resources to provide evidence-based information useful to dental education communities worldwide. The
collaborative efforts of all academic institutions go a long way in
nurturing these international exchange efforts. The potential scope of international collaboration is unimaginable, the
advantages of which are already beginning to emerge. And together, we will
in the near future reap the benefits.
