A guide to nursing students' written reflections for students and educators.

Experiences from the clinical setting are ideal for building critical thinking skills if reflection is used as a teaching tool. Reflective writing is the purposeful and recurring inspection of thoughts, feelings, and occurrences that coordinate with experiences during practice. Reflecting on clinical experiences develops critical thinking ability, fosters self-understanding, facilitates coping, and leads to improvement in clinical practice (Kennison, 2006).