Assisting students with APA!
From Christine Lustik, PhD
Sample Announcement
APA is a style of writing. There is only one official APA formatting style. The main formatting styles are APA, MLA, and Chicago. CLU uses APA, which stands for American Psychological Association and the current edition is in the 7th edition. You can learn a few more basics in the attached, What is APA? Quick Guide.
If you have not used APA to format essays within your previous education endeavors, I encourage you to intentionally set aside time (hours) to study the following resources.
Formatting takes time. You will have to put a fair amount of time into this and always keep your resources close, but if you ignore it, it will continue to add stress to you throughout graduate school. The sooner you put effort into it the sooner you can relax and just know where to look something up when needed. Learning to use our resources constantly as leaders and professionals is a key skill.
About Dr. Christine Lustik
Christine Lustik, Ph.D. is the owner of Mindfulness in Organizations, LLC. Christine trains individuals and groups within education, non-profit, healthcare, government, and corporate to practice Mindfulness with the goal of decreasing stress and chaos and increasing focus and resiliency. Prior to running her own business, Christine spent 14 years in leadership and the online education arena of higher education and loves being connected to higher education again through teaching for Claremont Lincoln University.
One of our colleagues, Prof. Phyllis Sarkaria, shared one of her techniques for working to increase student participation (early and substantive) in the DB. I’m pasting that below— it’s really excellent, please review and consider if that works with your teaching style and needs.
Message to students from Prof. Sarkaria that she shares in every class:
"In an effort to get them more engaged in discussion with one another (and me :-), I post an announcement in the first week on how I will handle participation points. I developed this message in late 2019 and have been using it since then. It is based on my understanding of the grading rubric. The relevant portion of the message reads:
Subject: If you don’t read this, you might miss something important re discussion posts This message has important information that you need to know regarding the discussion board. Please read through it carefully. You don't want to discover halfway through the course that the answer was here all along!!
A Note on Participation Points You’ll find the grading rubrics are very helpful for understanding how you earn points for each discussion board post or assignment. For the discussion posts, ten of the 50 points for each discussion post are related to participation (that’s 20%!). This is how those 10 points will be graded in this class.
Participation points require that you respond to classmates. When you don’t respond to classmates, you do not earn any of those points (yes, you read that correctly… zero participation points). While content and critical analysis are related primarily to your initial post, to earn full participation points you must respond substantively to at least two classmates and participate in the discussion board (in the form of these responses) on at least two separate dates. “Substantive” responses build on the discussion by adding your own examples, citing course materials, asking questions that take the conversation deeper, and sharing additional resources that relate to the classmate’s initial post.
You are encouraged to respond to more than two messages and to fully engage in conversation. In my experience, the more you participate, the more you will get out of the class. Each of you has something to add to the conversation. This is an opportunity for you to share your experiences, challenge classmates with a fresh perspective, and learn more through openness and curiosity in your interactions. Further, as Wharton professor and author Adam Grant says, we exist in an “interdependent world of work. Organizations value people who make their teams better and motivate their colleagues to contribute more.”
None of us truly succeed alone, so build your success by contributing to your classmates' learning. Share a great discovery you have made or ask a question that helps them to think differently. In doing so, you may discover new insights as well!
[announcement continues but not re participation points]…"
About Phyllis Sarkaria
Phyllis H. Sarkaria is a human capital executive, coach, and adviser and serves on the teaching faculty at Claremont Lincoln University. Before starting her consulting practice, Phyllis was Vice President, Human Resources for Quidel Corporation, a leading manufacturer of medical diagnostic tests, where she oversaw the company's global HR strategy and programs for over 12 years.
About Dr. Matt Donovan
Matt Donovan, Ph.D., is a Claremont Core faculty instructor at CLU. He is also an instructor at San Diego State University, where he teaches courses on leadership, health communication, and the politics of health. Matt's academic interests and expertise primarily center around issues of health (how individual health is talked about, how it is regulated, and how bodies are treated in the political sphere, the public sphere, across the healthcare system, and through medical technologies). Matt specifically looks at the tensions between healthcare governance, corporate interests, and citizen science. Matt's goals are to use his research to create greater health equity. In addition to teaching, Matt is an industry professional with over a decade of experience in corporate innovation, organizational strategy, and technology development. Matt earned his doctorate in Organizational Communication from Arizona State University and his Masters in Science from Illinois State University. He also has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.
About Professor Chris Trevett
Chris Trevett comes to Claremont Lincoln after four years teaching public speaking and rhetoric, and assisting in communication courses at Portland State University, four and a half years teaching philosophy at Global Ministries University, and a one-year stint with Warner Pacific University teaching human development. He developed and continues to teach the graduate, online course “the Philosophical Christian Mind” for GMU, which he describes as a “critical examination of the confluence of philosophy, psychology, and theology.” He has also participated as a guest lecturer in a series at Rose Schnitzer Manor in Portland, OR, called “Let’s Talk,” on the topic of intercultural communication. In 2018, he volunteered in tutoring at Portland State’s Intensive English Language Program; also in that year he acquired a TEFL/TESOL certificate from the International TEFL Academy in Chicago. He feels that the tremendous diversity of his face-to-face classes at PSU has been a “life-altering” event that has enlivened all his subsequent teaching experiences and solidified his multi-disciplinary approach to teaching—and his own continuing education. His professional career outside of academia includes ten years as both a curriculum development associate and international sales manager for Canter & Associates, an educational publisher in Los Angeles, now known as Laureate Education. He also served in the US Navy from 1985 to 1988, aboard the USS Ranger (CV-61), as a Religious Program Specialist, a position that was described at the time as a “glorified librarian.”
Jason Waldow has a Master’s degree in Business Leadership Communications and a Master's of Science in Communications education. He has been teaching Communications for over fifteen years in both on-ground and online settings. His current research centers on executive function in regard to the communication process. This involves TBIs and learning obstacles. Recently, he has started to explore research involving communication and environment, specifically focusing on young learners. The majority of his studies focus on cultural and educational communications. Professor Waldow has served as a team leadership consultant for Boeing executives which allows his research and studies to interconnect in the private sector. He has also utilized his Communications background to help create crisis management strategies for organizations. He enjoys working with local non-profits that help "at-risk" youth and has been involved with the Big Brother Big Sister organization for many years.
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