Attending: Active listening c/o Baggini & TPM

Reading through more past issues of The Philosopher's Magazine, I came across Baggini's short contribution of Attending one of "50 New Ideas".

That Hodges' model has a role in attention must follow from its main purpose as an aide-mémoire. To 'know', to recognise that your memory has been jogged is surely to attend.

I realise that Hodges' model represents a philosophical smörgåsbord, rather like the 50 ideas in this issue.^

Baggini draws on a film for inspiration on empathy, feelings for other, humanity and moral philosophy. For Hodges' model our context can encompass media, but the focus remains empathy, ability to relate in the clinical, social care context. Attention and interpersonal skills come the fore here.

If you are not hungry, the model (smörgåsbord) can be considered as empty. This is a precondition for 'attending' - having unconditional positive regard. Apart from information that relates to the patient's, student's, and your safety the domains of Hodges' model are vacant spaces. How they are populated depends on how we attend. There are important lessons for students here. The first is their phone. Its being on their person, may impact their ability to attend to the other (person). The window to outside isn't a screen either.

 Individual
  |

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

previous experience cognitive furniture - elephants in the room (for all?) attend/attending attention active listening authenticity observation empathy - rapport therapeutic relationship unconditional +ve regard I see, I hear you ...	physical space physical environment measurements furniture - layout position / posture observation

Attending needs to be active listening. This includes all the senses, although sniffing the air is probably  best avoided - body odour may announce itself. Attention, then is synonymous with observation and in this context must span an individual's physical and their psychological presentation. You may draw social, political and spiritual assumptions, it is human to do so. Intuition has a role in healthcare but initial conclusions must be recognised as potentially premature and be verified. 

To initiate, be-in, partake-in such situations is to attend to the verbal, and non-communication; the data you already have and information communicated, including in a referral. Is this confirmed, challenged, what is your opinion? What about your colleagues? Most importantly, what does the person (patient, client... say)? What is unspoken? Do you understand? Did you seek clarification? 'Where' have you been / not been in Hodges' model? What picture is emerging at this stage?

It is gratifying that this is the first of the 50 'new' (2016) ideas in TPM #72. 

More to follow - drawing on TPM and (I think, Hodges' model as a 'philosophy? Surely not!)

Baggini, J., Attending, The Philosopher's Magazine, 1st Quarter 2016. Issue 72. pp.21-22.

TPM #72 cover image: https://ericthomasweber.org/correcting-political-correctness/

Gagné nine events in E-learning

In checking through more books, I revisited Khan and Ally's International Handbook of E-Learning. Chapter 10 by Florence Martin includes several models for instructional design. My in-situ pencil notes from 2015 reminded me of Figure 10.1 "Adaptation of Gagné's nine events" (Gagné and Driscoll, 1988).

I found a version on Pinterest:

Gagné's nine events

Martin and others refer to "Present Stimulus" as "Present the Content" and this is what stands out. If Hodges' model was realised within an online reflective workbench then the student would be engaged in creating the content. The student becomes the stimulus, generating the content.

Pinterest provides another version which sums up quite nicely the potential of Hodges' model. It was brainstorming and developments in mind-mapping that prompted my interest. Structure can gain attention. Structure might also invite interaction. Hodges' model presents a space in which the contents might be manipulated? The initial blank space might also indicate an objective. A series of care or knowledge domains may also invite reflection on a practical experience, a patient or carer encounter.

Gagné's nine events

What follows from Present the content in Gagné's nine events remains a challenge, but if you understand what Hodges' model is and its application then you may also see its potential.


Martin, F. (2015) E-learning Design-From Instructional Events to Elements, Chapter 10. In Badrul H. Khan, & Mohamed Ally (Eds) International Handbook of E-Learning. Volume 1, Oxford: Routledge. pp. 153-170.

With regards to putting a pile of books together for a trip to Hay-on-Wye these handbooks Vols 1 & 2 are keepers.

c/o BBC R4: The Listening Project

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

The Listening...	Project

BBC Radio 4: The Listening Project

‘Attentive Writers’: Healthcare, Authorship, and Authority - Call for Papers

 Medical Humanities Research Centre, University of Glasgow, 23-25 August 2013

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/research/conferences/attentivewriters/

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/research/conferences/attentivewriters/

From nurses, physicians and surgeons to administrators, caregivers, technicians, veterinarians and voluntary sector workers, this conference adopts the term ‘attentive writers’ as evocative of the multitude of both non-professional and professional caregivers – clinical and non-clinical healthcare workers – whose attention to illness might take narrative form. The study of physician-writers was one of the earliest developments in the related fields of Literature and Medicine and the Medical Humanities, with canonical figures such as Conan Doyle, Goldsmith, Keats, Smollett, and William Carlos Williams, receiving much-deserved critical attention. Echoing Rita Charon’s concept of ’attentiveness’, this conference brings this established field of enquiry regarding ‘the physician as writer’ into dialogue with recent calls for a more inclusive approach to the Medical Humanities (i.e. ‘Health Humanities’) and questions the authoritative place of the Western – traditionally male – physician in our explorations of the humanities/health interface.

The relationship between healthcare, authorship and authority will be addressed through three inter-related strands of thematic enquiry: (1) an historical and literary examination of ‘attentive writers’; (2) a more devolved interrogation of the field of Narrative Medicine; and (3) an examination of ‘attentive writing’ as creative practice.

Current Confirmed Plenary Speakers: Professor Rita Charon; Professor Paul Crawford; Further TBA Papers might address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Nurse-writers, physician-writers, surgeon-writers, veterinarian-writers, etc. of any culture, historical period or literary epoch, and/or nurses, physicians, surgeons, and vets as literary subjects
• Non-clinical healthcare workers (adminstrators, janitors, technicians, etc.) as writers and/or literary subjects
• The literature of caregiving
• Gender and medical authority
• Historical development of medical and literary professionalism
• The afterlife of Foucault’s ‘medical gaze’
• Hybrid discourses and genres (the case history, illness narratives, etc.)
• Narrative Medicine (and, particularly, does it challenge or reinforce the notion of physician as sole author/authority) and related developments in professionalism and education
• The philosophy of attentiveness in healthcare and creative writing
• ‘Attentive writing’ as creative practice; including ‘process oriented’ writing practices and those primarily concerned with the creation of aesthetically valuable outcomes.

Abstracts of up to 500 words should be submitted, along with a short biography (no more than 250 words), to arts-attentivewriters at glasgow.ac.uk by 4 March 2013 (note the extended date). Further information for creative writers wishing to make a submission will be announced shortly.

Any queries may also be directed to: megan.coyer at glasgow.ac.uk

Jill Anderson Senior Project Development Officer, Mental Health in Higher Education [My source] 
Join mhhe hub: http://mhhehub.ning.com/

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It is six years this April of trying to be an 'attentive writer' here on W2tQ, so this sounds a very interesting conference in an apparently fabulous city I have yet to visit. Hodges' model is a great tool to assist in attentiveness and creativity. After the disappointment of the conference in Australia for May, I am considering other conference options and writing projects.