Chapter 2 Lesson Plan: Using Theoretical Lenses to Support Relational Inquiry

This is the heaviest chapter in the book in terms of amount and complexity of content. Since some students may find the amount of content and complexity of the ideas in Chapter 2a bit daunting, the central instructional task is that of helping the students translate the content/ideas into a meaningful and useable form. To help you do this, we have included Table 2.1 in the chapter. This table can be used by you and by the students as a concrete roadmap to follow as they read through the chapter discussion and/or you discuss it in class. The textboxes in the chapter that highlight the central features of the lenses can also be enlisted to direct attention to the most salient ideas. Within the book we have also included a number of Try It Out activities and illustrative examples that could be used in the classroom as praxis opportunities to support translation of the ideas into practice.

The lesson plan and learning activities for this chapter are aimed toward the following:

  • Furthering students’ understanding of the importance of relational inquiry at the point-of-care
  • Creating the opportunity for students to try out the hermeneutic phenomenological (HP) and critical lens and actually experience how they can expand the quality of their perceptions of people/families and nursing situations
  • Developing an understanding of how the hermeneutic phenomenological (HP) and critical lens work in concert and support the relational inquiry process
  • Enabling students to have the experience of examining nursing situations and nursing practice from several vantage points and consider how the common practices of privileging individual choice, categorizing, and differentiating can limit responsive care

Resources and Materials

  1. PowerPoint outlining the central elements of the HP and Critical lenses.
  2. Table 2.1 from book that provides a concrete tool to enlist when practicing with the HP and critical lenses
  3. Try It Outexercises in Chapter 2
  4. This Week in Practiceexercise in Chapter 2
  5. Narratives or case studies from your particular course topic

Learning Activity 2.1: Enlisting the Lenses

Part One: Review the Chapter 2 PowerPoint to provide the students with a brief overview of the HP and critical lenses

Part Two: Choose a narrative from your particular course topic (for example, to teach communication/relational practice, to teach family nursing, to teach a culture and health course, and so forth) to try out the threelenses. This will enable the central concepts in your course to be integrated with the relational inquiry process and ideas outlined in Chapter 2.

You might enlist the narratives and case situations in several ways: have students divide into small groups to discuss how the lenses might be used to better understand and respond within the case situation; have some groups take the HP lens and others take the critical lens and then compare and contrast how it shaped their views and understandings and so forth. This can also be done very effectively as a simulation where you have students role play (simulate) the situation using one lens at a time or using the two in combination. During these interactive activities, Table 2.1 can help you move the analysis to a very concrete level. You might have the table laminated and give it to students or put it up on screen so students can practice using the questions. The activity can be adapted to any clinical context, or any clinical context can be used as an example. For example, if students are concurrently in a long-term care setting, you can assign them to use the lenses to examine that particular context. To level the activity for more advanced students, try requiring an analysis of an article or issue related to a particular practice setting. To follow the example, you might have students think about a long-term care or gerontology setting, and examine the issue of “least restraints” or an article reporting research on restraints.

Learning Activity 2.2: Examining Constraining Practices

This learning activity is focused on helping students see how the common practices we outline in Chapter 2 (privileging individual choice, categorizing, and differentiating) can limit responsive care. To do this you could begin by using case studies, YouTube clips, storytelling (e.g., have a guest come to class and tell the story of their health care experience) to examine situations for these common practices and then critically consider their impact. Following the in-class practice students could be sent out to clinical settings with an inquiry exercise (inquiry homework) where they examine the patient records in their clinical setting to examine how the system of recording reinforces these practices and identify what is privileged, how patients are categorized and distinguished, and how that shapes what is seen and attended to during their health care experience.

Clinical Practicum Activity

If working with students in a clinical setting, a helpful learning activity would be to have them read the patient record and prepare in the usual way to meet the patient. Then they could enlist Table 2.1 to experience how their understandings and perception might be expanded by enlisting the lenses. An important question would also be how this expanded understanding might inform their nursing care. These experiences could be shared in post conference.

Levelling the Activities

The learning activities could be modified with different levels of students. For example, with first year students the HP lens might be enlisted to particularly focus on the idea of meaning and health as a meaningful experience. The critical lens could be enlisted to explore the importance of context and how context shapes people and experiences. In clinical and relational practice courses, Table 2.1 might be enlisted by first-year students as a conversational tool when learning how to relate in meaningful and responsive ways with people. Upper-level baccalaureate students in third or fourth year would be expected to be working with the lenses in more sophisticated ways (e.g., enlisting them to highlight areas that require further knowledge) and enlisting them in their clinical practice to inform action. Graduate students would be using the lenses to further their own theorizing and understanding of the phenomenon they are studying.

Potential Graded Assignment

One written assignment would be to have students map and re-envision one patient they are caring for. Part A: Describe the information they were given or received prior to meeting the patient. Part B: Describe what came to light when they looked through an HP and critical lens,including how it expanded and/or changed your understanding. Part C: How enlisting the two lenses changed the way the person might be distinguished or categorized and the implications of that for patient care. Within this assignment you could also enlist an arts-based approach and have students create a visual depiction or conceptual map—do a before and after understanding of the patient and the implications for nursing action.