Reflective journaling is a pedagogical method that develops critical thinking skills, facilitates professional goals, and promotes self-awareness while allowing the student to correlate clinical experiences with learning outcomes. The 2021 American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) core competencies for professional nursing education strongly endorse the adoption of competency-based teaching.1 Reflective journaling can be a useful tool, providing the graduate student with a better understanding of how competency-based education facilitates skills, attitudes, knowledge, and confidence in preparation for graduation and the transition into clinical practice. A chart template, containing 3 major columns "AACN domains," "AACN competencies," and "clinical experience," was created. Each of the nurse practitioner students was then asked to select at least 7 of the 10 AACN advanced-level domains and identify the advanced-level competencies that were met within that domain. For each domain, the students provided a specific de-identified clinical example of how that competency was met (see Supplemental Digital Content, available at: http://links.lww.com/NE/B279). The clinical faculty evaluated students' responses as part of the reflective journaling assignment due at the end of each semester. This assignment tasked students with completing a self-assessment of their clinical experiences, highlighting their clinical strengths, weaknesses, and plans for improvement. This reflective journaling assignment provides insight for both faculty and students that can guide the optimization of the clinical practicum experience.

Reference