Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD: big picture

Hodges' model is a conceptual framework to support reflection and critical thinking. Situated, the model can help integrate all disciplines (academic and professional). Amid news items, are posts that illustrate the scope and application of the model. A bibliography and A4 template are provided in the sidebar. Welcome to the QUAD ...

Showing posts with label big picture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big picture. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2026

A Scope with the Big Picture in Mind

Coverage plans are ready for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope prelaunch and launch activities. Roman is NASA’s next-generation observatory designed to explore some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including dark energy. NASA and SpaceX are targeting Roman’s liftoff for no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch coverage begins at 6:20 a.m. Live coverage of these events will stream through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online: 


individual
|
INTERPERSONAL
: SCIENCES             
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
group
education for ALL
life chances

Nancy Grace

STEMM
Observation
Scale

ROMAN

Girls - Women in Science

Political investment in Science for Public and Planetary Good

See also:

Nancy Grace Roman

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/

Previously: 'women' : 'astronomy' : 'big picture'

Monday, September 08, 2025

ii Editorial: Persistent Positive Change in Challenging Times ...

To Howden's editorial it's worth highlighting that Hodges' model is situated. So, whether the 'challenge' that is faced is individual, or collective Hodges' model can help to identify the issues, problems, strengths, opportunities, threats, where we are, where we would like to be and more. Surely, reflection, critical thinking is about confiming, or regaining our perspective, correcting our orientation or improving alignment and synchronisation with others? The time this entails, whether exercised on paper, or cognitively (yes, humans thinking is still an option) this is equivalent to a time-out even if momentary. This can be critical in clinical encounters, were emotions are raised, or there is risk of escalation.

So whether the challenge is personal, lived experience, bullying, finance, physical, or mental health, simulation (fidelity, testing), ethical ...; or collective (a team) - service and organisational change, major incident, policy, clinical or management supervision, whistleblowing, public / patient engagement, complaints and challenging relationships; Hodges' model is a tool (one of many) to call upon.

It could be the context causes you to focus on one or two care (knowledge) domains. Or, there is a need to step back in order to 'see' the big picture (integrated care, risk assessment, holistic care, psychosocial view ...) - the spiritual too.

While Hodges' model is simple, please consider this: there aren't many tools that can facilitate articulation and dissemination of the 'big picture' in a form that is (imho) readily transferable and translatable.

Howden, S. (2025). Editorial: Persistent Positive Change in Challenging Times. International Journal of Practice-based Learning in Health and Social Care, 13(1), ii-iii.

Friday, November 22, 2024

Ethics and the 'big picture'

'It has been my experience that many of the most successful and creative heads of major research labs around the country came to their place from other disciplines. For example, one prominent geneticist that I know has his Ph.D. in chemistry. He told me that coming to genetics from outside the discipline gave him an awareness of structures and values that were invisible to those laboring inside the established system. Much as one has critical insights into the ambience of a city or culture when one comes from outside as a foreigner, so also is there critical understanding of academic disciplines. Thus, one response to the add-on question is to reply that the material you are providing can make your students better scientists by giving them a more global, contextual perspective. A global, contextual perspective allows one to consider divergent research designs that approach a problem in many directions. This is sometimes called "big picture" thinking. Part of the big picture includes other scientific contexts. For example, biology is seen in the context of chemistry, and chemistry is seen in the context of physics. But it is more than that. It also includes values. Should I, as a scientist, pursue all questions with the same vigor? Are there some questions that should be avoided because of the social consequences of their results? Is the scientist compelled to think in terms of helping humankind or helping himself to a Nobel Prize in any way he can? All of these involve values and ethics. They are critical components to global big picture thinking. Such a perspective is a valuable tool for anyone seeking excellence in scientific research.' p.28.
Boylan, M., & Donahue, J. (2003). Ethics across the curriculum : a practice-based approach. Lexington Books. 

INDIVIDUAL
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              
humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   
|
GROUP

PERSONAL ETHICS
INDIVIDUAL INTEGRITY
MY EXPERIENCE
MY REFLECTIONS
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
PURPOSE
BELIEFS

CHARACTER EDUCATION
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

PROCESS
OBJECTIVITY
FACTS 
EMPIRICISM

'We define ethics as the process of reflection on the moral meaning of actions.' p.5.

'BIG PICTURE'
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION


PRACTICE
COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
ETHOS^ (Chap. 6)

'Ethics is not a discrete body of knowledge that one simply acquires for application and use in particular situations. It entails the ongoing appropriation of ideas of the good as they relate to the changig situations, contexts, and developments in individuals and groups lives. ^ Ethics reflects on actions the actions of individuals and groups.' p.5.


PROFESSIONAL BODIES
PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
PROFESSIONAL & COMMERCIAL - ACCOUNTABILITY
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
DUTY OF CARE
POLICY
LAW
JUSTICE

autonomy; nonmaleficence; beneficence; justice*



^Stackhouse, M. (1972) Ethics and the Urban Ethos: An Essay in Social Theory and Theological Construction, Boston: Beacon Press. (Chap. 6, Boylan & Donahue)

*Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2013). Principles of biomedical ethics (7th ed.). Oxford University Press. (Chap. 6, Boylan & Donahue)

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Dementia research meets motorsports: Innovation Accelerator

Are you an early career researcher with an interest in dementia?

Would you like the chance to collaborate, innovate and compete?

Race Against Dementia and the DEMON Network, in partnership with Cranfield University, are inviting applications to participate in our Innovation Accelerator. This unique event will bring together teams of early career dementia scientists and similar stage experts from the motorsport industry, create diversity of thinking and break down ‘silos’ that currently exist between institutions and disciplines.

You will have the opportunity to think big and outside the box, develop ambitious ideas and learn from experts in the motorsports industry and other commercial enterprises with track records of rapid progress and innovation.

Ultimately, you will pitch to secure a hypothetical £20k seed funding prize. This competitive workshop will prepare you as an innovator to create successful applications for dementia research funding. It is also an opportunity to network and develop collaborative relationships.


More detail including how to apply.

My source: DEMON network.


Thursday, October 01, 2020

The Contribution of Disciplines from the Arts and Humanities to addressing Antimicrobial Resistance: final report

The Contribution of Disciplines
from the Arts and Humanities
to addressing
Antimicrobial Resistance
 Dear RIPEN workshop participants
 
It is now over a year since our last main sets of RIPEN workshops and of course so much has happened in that time that I don't know quite where to begin (!!). So I won't start into talking about COVID. Only to say that I very much hope that you and yours are managing to get through this ok so far. I know that I speak for the rest of the RIPEN team when I say that recent events have only served to highlight the central place of nursing and caring in society which is a source of pride (if not so much monetary reward!).
 
Anyway, I thought that some of you might be interested in this link to the final report from a follow-on study that I've just completed. It draws together learning from all the 11 projects funded by the AHRC at the same time as RIPEN: http://radar.gsa.ac.uk/7418/ . 
 
The report is best viewed in double page layout (download, save then open). Obviously, it is of less direct relevance to hands on nursing applications, but I think our experiences on RIPEN showed how important the wider picture often is (as evident in the events of the last six months!).

Please feel free to share with others through any of your own networks as relevant. 

with best wishes

Colin

Dr Colin Macduff
Senior Research Fellow
School of Design
Glasgow School of Art
 
MacDuff, Colin (2020) The Contribution of Disciplines from the Arts and Humanities to addressing Antimicrobial Resistance (CODA AMR). Project Report. The Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow.  

n.b. I will have a read myself and post again before the end of the year.

Monday, March 03, 2014

The limitations of the healthcare sector


4
many
decades there 
have been recurring 
issues, austerity measures, 
requirements, policy challenges, 
policy initiatives, gaps between theory 
and practice, a crisis in compassionate care, 
rising waiting times and a plethora of other concerns.

All these then and much more 
affect the
 healthcare
 sector

Clearly, there is no 'magic wand', but there must be a way to address some of the difficulties? 
Within health and social care, locally, nationally and globally we need a tool to help improve interprofessional reflective practice, to support person-centered, holistic care across physical, emotional, social, political and spiritual domains of care. 

The future demands a resource (free, open, easy to learn) that can also facilitate self-care, health literacy and the many carers within families and communities.
So, how big is your picture?



Sector_of_Circle.jpg Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

H2CM: the 'title wall'

Museums and other organisations will often use a 'Title Wall' to present an exhibition. I read about this in the current IdN World and as I did thought about the Tate (London and Liverpool) and the visit to the National Gallery last February. The title wall will feature dedicated design, specific use of colour, typography and layout to communicate the promise that is the exhibition inside.


Perhaps Hodges' model is a Title Wall for health and social care?

Immediately, what title are we to use?

To begin with it is "Mrs Moore", until "Jessica - is fine."

The title wall is an invitation for a dialogue with an artist or artists. Hodges' model is an invitation to patient, carer, health professional and student to engage in a care dialogue.

The story still needs to be told whether by an artist or the patient. Listen to the wall. It should say nothing, despite the divide. Self. Other.

Words. Icons. Threaded in time. Often disjoint in mind.

What a job that combines the arts and the sciences - to collaborate in formulating THE BIG PICTURE of a person's health and social care situation.

A museum such as MOMA apparently has an in-house design team.

In-house ... this is our prize.

Can we provide the patient, carer and the general public with the level of health literacy for them to engage in self-care?

Care4grafitti anyone?


Image source: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/tag/ann-temkin

Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Bigger Picture - Hockney: Hodges' model 4 dynamic perspectives



In the decades to follow the patient, the carer, the health and social care professional must all be dynamic. All must be capable of movement - that is taking in several perspectives. As always composition is vital. So is choreography. As Hockney indicates the picture comprises both ordinary perspective and reverse perspective.


If static, found only for a moment: an assessment, plan, evaluation. A snapshot. Then moving a-gain.

Ever seeking the dynamic.
 
Acknowledgement: David Hockney


My source:
'The mass media has lost its perspective'.
David Hockney, The Financial Times, Page 11, October 27-28, 2012 

Image source:
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/a-bigger-picture

Additional post:
http://hodges-model.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/bigger-picture-david-hockney-ra.html

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A Bigger Picture: David Hockney RA



The same year [2007], he continues, "the RA offered me this whole space, all 10 rooms, for 2011. I took a couple of days to say yes but I said it had to be 2012 - because I needed four springs: first to observe and prepare, then to paint. ..."



My source: Wullschlager, J. Blue-sky painting. FTWeekend, Life & Arts, January 14-15, 2012.  pp. 1-2.


Image (original copyright acknowledged):
c/o http://www.theartnewspaper.com

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

The astrolabe, programming and big pictures



The astrolabe was a
mechanical implementation of
an object-orientation
model of the sky. p.47.






Eric Evans, (2009). Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software, Model-Driven Design. Addison-Wesley.


Image source: http://planetariubm.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/femei-celebre-in-istoria-astronomiei-1/

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Gardner's 5 Minds for the Future (and the Question)

In order to pursue post graduate study you need a project, which demands a question. Formulating a research question is central. I wonder however whether there remains a bias - hard sciences vs humanities (and triangulation) - towards a class of questions that are closed and so can be answered in X-words : Y-time : with Z-funding? Thereby passing through the necessary academic hoops. Of course I realise that if there are no constraints then chaos would ensue. I just wonder if the journey (creativity, discovery ...) might be lost for the sake of assuring the end product?

My questions (apart from 'beware reflex moves') tend to be framed in broad terms. You could say that as yet I am not disciplined (specific) enough to come up with a question that passes "GO!"

In Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future the issue of educational programmes is raised and I read the following:

The second antidote entails the creation of educational programs directed specifically at certain individuals of promise - for example, leaders of tomorrow. Chief executives and general managers are expected to be able to see the big picture - to look beyond their own background and specialization; to understand the various components in their organization or constituency; to think systematically about what is working, what is not working, and how goals can be more effectively achieved. ...

Other individuals - for example, those exhibiting a "searchlight" or "bricoleur" intelligence - might be attracted to such programs as well. They would make use of their enhanced skills even if they do not occupy explicit leadership roles. Perhaps, as educator Vartan Gregorian has suggested, we need a specialization in becoming a generalist. p.75.

Gardner, H. (2008) Five Minds for the Future, Harvard University Press.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Editorial JRN. Coalition in leadership: Politics - the big picture and the big game



In the Journal of Research in Nursing, Veronica Bishop's editorial -

Coalition in leadership.
Politics - the big picture and the big game

- explores the state of the body politic in nursing. Bishop's focus is research, but the implications extend beyond the UK, to nursing globally. The body is indeed immersed in politics, but it seems the feet are dry and there is no one at home.


Considering that The Politics of Nursing by Jane Salvage was published c. 1991 political maturity is long overdue?

While the sexual politics of nursing have been campaigned for in the nursing media and vigilance is needed, it seems that a political birth for nursing needs to be induced. There is a political mentality there, there has to be. The future is too challenging, too fraught, too close to be mollified by appeals of "Anything for an easy life (and death)!."

Bishop begins with a quote:

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
Theodore Hesburgh (1917–(2015))
If you are familiar with Hodges' model then you know what is coming. ... In quantitative (and qualitative) terms 25% of our deliberations using Hodges' model can be POLITICAL. This is not just the political dimensions of the patient, carer and the health and social care enterprise. The model includes the practitioner, but back to Bishop:
Having ‘power’ is a concept that sits uncomfortably with many nurses – it does not fit with the ideal of caring and many clinical nurses are quite open in their lack of regard for those in management, seeing them as power-seekers rather than power-movers. Clearly nurse leaders have in many cases failed to take their clinical colleagues with them in the drive to put nursing where it belongs, at the decision-making point that drives the agenda for health services, a point borne out by Stanley (2009).
How ironic that 'comfort' itself has been the subject of concept analysis and theorising in the nursing literature. If student nurses are exposed to the POLITICAL from the outset of their careers, then surely at the very least they will be more comfortable dealing with the guises and disguises of power?

Bishop refers to leadership and ownership and the two are frequently conjoined. The question of politics in nursing - in thought, practice, management and policy (research!) - makes me wonder ownership of what?

If the political domain is so frequently a vacant lot as far as nurses are concerned, then perhaps when we do put in an appearance we are not taken seriously. It really is a case of: what are you doing here?! As Bishop points out through -
Nurses are scientific. When they want to get to the core of a problem they always try to drill down. Yet politics are about the big picture. Nurses are agriculturalists in that they grow and nurture things but politicians are hunters – they’re always after the big game. It’s these kinds of differences nurses need to start to understand. (Cumberlege, 2007).
Nurses are there in the POLITICAL domain: they are constantly trying to complete the big picture.
... we were considering the best way for her [Baroness Cumberlege] to approach an interview the following day, and eventually, after we had viewed the uppermost issue of the day from every angle she said ‘Oh, nursing is so big!’. How right she was – there is hardly any aspect of life that it does not overlap or impinge on, so considering the big picture is a mammoth task! And again, she was right, we need leaders who have clarity and energy, and can cut through the detail and focus on the professional entity.
Yes, the big 'P'-icture is a mammoth task, hence the need to uncover, compose and frame it early. POLITICS is not just a matter of whistle blowing, industrial relations, policy, the system, us-and-them, banner headlines. ...

Politics is much more and crucial to research as Bishop attests. So, if our students do not reflect upon and articulate the politics of health: ill-health, well-being, equality and inequality, wealth and poverty ... then that professional entity will be a political ghost. A ghost playing a little game in an alien and alienating domain.

Veronica Bishop (2010) Coalition in leadership. Politics - the big picture and the big game, Journal of Research in Nursing; 15; 291.
DOI: 10.1177/1744987110374692

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Care is a 4 perspective business ...

NVIDEA Quadro NVS 450Health care as practised in whichever sector prides itself on being business-like and professional. As we are often reminded health care costs. Health care is a business and like finance a very serious one.

On the computer graphics card notice the four display ports? This card - the NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 450 is apparently capable of driving up to four 30" displays and is designed to meet the needs of today’s most demanding business user.

I wonder if there is another application that could also utilise
four perspectives? What about the business of care?


Thursday, November 19, 2009

Ageism: Four year old ideas and big pictures

Models of nursing are still alive and kicking on nurse education curricula. One day ;-) I will do that literature search and look at the numbers and dates of publication. It seems reasonable to assume that there are now fewer newborn and infant examples compared with the 70-90s. While internet time may be compressed there must be strange goings on in nursing academia if some students (apparently) only refer to sources within the past four years. The field is going to be very furrowed with so many wheels being brought to bear on theory and practice and then suddenly cast aside to rust (if mechanistic) or go rotten (if humanistic) or perhaps both (holistic). Wither a space for creativity and innovation that also supports sustainability, continuity, stability, integrity...? Are they mutually exclusive?

If there is an over-four-year-can't-go-there! rule then logic suggests that a newly realised evidence-based method or tool has a limited life span for some students. This constant, iterative, critique of theory and practice IS crucial, but in terms of doing those things that depend on nurses weaving between subject disciplines and other professions where is the big picture? How old are your stories: the ones that really count?

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Big pictures: Hodges’ model and Future Studies

I came across a 1996 paper by Richard Slaughter - The Knowledge Base Of Futures Studies As An Evolving Process. The paper highlighted a problem faced by future studies which was (and still may be?) grappling with its knowledge base:

Why, then, is it necessary to have a knowledge base of futures studies (KBFS)? There are several reasons. First, as Norwegian futurist Kjell Dahle pointed out at the World Futures Studies Federation conference in Barcelona in September 1991, the lack of a common knowledge base greatly complicated the work of those preparing courses, planning research, teaching and developing FS projects. The field is well known for its breadth, geographical scope and range of disciplinary paradigms. Where, in all this diversity, should newcomers, particularly intending students, begin? …
As also cited on the h2cm website Slaughter notes the significance of Wilber’s quadrants as a key resource and approach -

I have referred to this work at some length because over several years Wilber’s developing account has reframed my own thinking about present and future options, both personal and collective. Such a framework integrates insights from a wide field and provides FS with powerful new understandings and tools which go beyond one-dimensional thinking (e.g. rationality, technique, forecasting) and a single privileged culture (Western culture). Here, then, is an emerging basis for big-picture thinking and action into the new millennium and beyond. Here too is where some of the most substantial developments in the KBFS are likely to occur.
[My emphasis.]
Health and social care is not only focused on the future -

It is concerned about the PAST, NOW and FUTURE

- BUT it is always future oriented.

So future studies community look over here – now (please!)

Source: Slaughter, Richard A. (1996). The Knowledge Base Of Futures Studies As An Evolving Process, Futures, 28, 9, 799-812.