​

I hope that last week had moments of rest and relaxation. While I did catch up on my email inbox (which had gotten a bit backed up 😬), I also started a puzzle and took a mid-day sauna 🧖‍♀️.

This week, I want to continue the series “Behind the Build” and discuss my process for creating the rough draft of a card deck.

​

In case you missed the first two emails, you can find them here.

• ​Week 1 - Introduction and Ideas​
• ​Week 2 - Planning Process​

​

Start with a Story 🪄

I believe that story is an essential pillar of active learning (this is an upcoming series 😉). It can hold a person’s attention, communicate complex ideas clearly, and be memorable. The human brain loves stories because it understands them. We have been using stories to share ideas for thousands of years. This is one of the reasons that case studies are an excellent teaching tool because they put the student in the center of a story.

I start with a story when I begin a case study card deck. In Donald Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand, he describes a seven-step framework that includes the universal principles of an engaging story.

Here is an overview:

1. There is a character.
2. They have a problem.
3. They encounter a guide who helps them.
4. The guide gives them a plan.
5. The character is called to action
6. The character takes action to avoid the pitfall
7. The story ends in success

Just think about any story that you know, and it follows this basic outline. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Fourth Wing - whatever movie or book you last read - follows this framework. The character, the environment, and the problem can all vary, but the underlying structure is the same. People inherently understand this structure, and when we are building case studies, you can use this undercurrent to move the story along.

Building a Case Study Story 🏗️

So, this is where we can collaborate and build this story framework together. I have a general idea of the story’s direction, but I would love your input. Here is the basic setup of the story.

Character Development ✍️

The first step is to know and develop the character in your mind. Imagine not only what the character looks like but their inherent qualities and personality. Think about their hobbies and their childhood, or imagine what their living environment looks like. I try to understand who they are as a human and build the rest of the case study from there.

• What do you imagine her to be like? Kind and caring or a bit rude and demanding? An owner of a local boutique, or does she homeschool? Did she play racquetball on the weekends, or was she frequently walking her dog?

​

Decide on a Problem 🚧

The next step is encountering a problem. While the primary problem is established (below-the-knee amputation), we can work on the sub-problems. Which direction should we take this? Here are a few ideas:

• Pain management - phantom pain
• Lab value analysis - acute renal failure due to antibiotic use
• Wound healing - history of diabetes
• Functional impairment - mobility concerns
• Emotional trauma - using therapeutic communication
• Interdisciplinary care - working with PT

​

A Clear Resolution 🫧

The story unfolds as the character encounters a guide. In this case study, the student nurse is the guide. They have the plan, call the character to action, and lead the way. Once we avoid all of the pitfalls of this case study and resolve the sub-problems, the story needs to have a clear ending. The final resolution of the problem is essential to the flow when building a case study. Students need to know early on what a successful resolution of the case looks like. By using a clear ending, we can close the open story loop. And the brain loves to close a story loop.

In this email’s subject line, I opened a story loop. Your brain wanted to know what story I was talking about. And now that you know it was a story about stories (a bit meta, but it works 😆), your brain has closed that loop and is no longer left wondering. Completing a story loop brings a certain level of satisfaction that you can use to your advantage.

So, where should this story end?

• The story takes place in pre-op and ends with the patient going to surgery
• The story takes place on a surgical unit and ends with a successful discharge home
• The story takes place during the follow-up period after surgery and ends with the successful fitting of a prosthesis

So far, so good! This is coming together now!

How Can You Use Story Effectively 📌

Here are a few ideas for incorporating story as an active learning technique:

• Clinical post-conference - ask students to write the story for their assigned patient. Not the medical history, but their story, as if it were a movie or a book.
• Writing case studies - when developing your content, use the framework to create a character and a resolution.
• Creative writing assignment - introduce this basic concept to students and ask them to write a case study using the framework
• Simulation - incorporate the framework to add depth in a quick simulation or a more advanced scenario.
• Ask questions to open story loops - leave questions all over the place for your students. In your course announcements, at the beginning of a clinical day, right before a break in theory content - leaving an open-ended question without a clear answer will have your students eager to resolve and wrap up the storyline.

By walking through this process, I hope you can see how you can successfully weave stories into your classroom or clinical experiences. It is a simple and powerful tool to structure an activity using this story framework because it is already familiar to your students, whether they realize it or not. It can be easier for students to remember and recall content attached to a story, and there is an intrinsic drive to complete the work and close the storyline. And finally, it can make complex topics more relatable.

📧 So, reply to this email and let me know your ideas for building this story. I'll return next week (with the second-to-last newsletter for 2023) about getting into the details of this project. See you then!

Talk soon, Martha