Reference no: EM132402139

Critical Thinking & Nursing Process Assignment - Critical Thinking and Clinical Reasoning Exercise

At the end of your first nursing class, your instructor gives an overview of a long-term assignment. She informs you that each semester of the program the class is required to complete a project that provides some type of service to the college community or the local community, and that demonstrates the role or importance of nursing. The instructor asks you to begin discussing potential projects and to come to class next week prepared to discuss several proposals for your community and the potential benefits of each option. You and several friends gather to talk about the class. "What an odd assignment!" you tell your friends. "How can we possibly do this now? We aren't nurses. We don't have any skills. What could we possibly do?" Your friends echo similar views.

This exercise is designed to help you actually work through the imaginary assignment you have just read. Use the critical-thinking model shown in Figure 2-1 of Volume 2 and the sample questions in Table 2-1 of Volume 1 to complete the assignment.

a. Contextual awareness is one concept in the critical-thinking model. Consider the context in which the assignment was given.

What exactly is this assignment?

Your instructor is perfectly aware of your knowledge and skill level. Why do you think she would ask students to complete such an assignment so early in their nursing studies?

To complete this assignment, you would need to gather information to find ways to answer the following questions. You would also need to use credible sources (another task of critical thinking) to address these questions.

b. What sources might you use to answer the following two questions?

What will I learn this semester?

What skills will I have by the time this assignment is due?

c. What are some ways in which you could answer the following two questions?

What do nurses do?

How do nurses interact with the community?

d. What are some ways in which you could obtain information to answer this question: What does my community need?

e. If you had actually gathered the preceding information, you would then need to consider possible solutions. One way would be to develop a list of community needs, a list of activities nurses engage in, and a list of skills and knowledge you will have at the end of the term. Then look at the overlap between the lists. This should help you to get some ideas for projects. Imagine now that you have a list of possible projects similar to the following:

Take blood pressures at a neighborhood grocery store for a day.

Hold a health fair at a neighborhood shopping center.

Create some materials for teaching about a healthy diet; distribute them at a community event.

Now think critically about this list of projects (this involves reflective skepticism and exploring and imagining alternatives). What questions could you ask about each project to help you decide which to actually do?