Cellphones, Internet, and the Classroom

I was one of seven experts recently asked to provide advice on how to balance time spent online and offline. I think this is important topic because many students are unable to even put their phones away for the entirety of a one hour class. Cell phones have increasingly become a distraction in my classrooms. For students that do not read as diligently as they are supposed to, the lecture might be the only chance they get to absorb material or have readings reinforced in another manner. However, if students are online while I am lecturing, then they will not adequately absorb and process the material being taught. Anyways, click the following link so you can read the 7 tips for balancing time spent online and offline.

• Thank you to the Safe Smart Social Team for publishing the original tips and story, Do Your Students Know How to Balance Time Spent Online & Offline, on April 6, 2017 in the Social Media Safety Blog.

 

Criminology Graduate Programs

Criminology Graduate Programs

Since the bulk of my readers appear to be from Illinois and Upstate South Carolina. This post will outline some options criminology students may consider when thinking about applying for graduate school. One thing to remember, you don't just want to be accepted into a program, you want the program to offer you an assistantship. I will make another post at a later date outlining the steps and tips for applying to graduate programs. This post will focus on simply highlighting the graduate school options for criminology students in the aforementioned regions. Below is a list of colleges I strongly suggest graduating criminology and criminal justice undergraduates from Illinois and South Carolina should consider. I have also listed a few top-tier programs that you may also want to consider. That being said, receiving funding from a more local university may be more beneficial than attending a "top-tier" program. Furthermore, many of these programs are growing. Southern Illinois University and UMSL, for example, have great faculty and smaller cohorts. This allows for more one-on-one attention between faculty advisors and graduate students. Myself, I strongly recommend the MA/PhD Criminology and Criminal Justice programs at  Southern Illinois University.

Upstate South Carolina & Surrounding Areas

University of North Georgia (MS in Criminal Justice)

University of South Carolina (MA/PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice)

Clemson University (M.S. Applied Sociology)

Winthrop University (Master of Social Work)

Charleston Southern University (MS in Criminal Justice)

The Citadel (MA in Social Science)

The Citadel (MA in Intelligence and Security Studies)

North Carolina Central University (MS in Criminal Justice) 

Illinois

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (M.A./Ph.D. Criminology & Criminal Justice)

University of Missouri - St. Louis (MA/PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice) 

Northern Illinois University (MA in Sociology w/ criminology specialization)

University of Illinois at Chicago (MA/PhD in Criminology, Law and Justice)

Chicago State University (MS in Criminal Justice) 

Illinois State University (MA/MS in Criminal Justice Sciences) 

Top Tier Graduate Programs

Florida State University (MA/MS/PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice)

Arizona State University (MA in Criminal Justice; MS/PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice)

Michigan State University (MS/PhD in Criminal Justice; MS/PhD in Forensic Science)

APA Citation

APA CITATION AND WHERE TO GO FOR HELP

One of the most common issues I deal with as a teacher is students needing help with APA citation. APA is the citation style used by the American Psychological Association. APA citation is commonly required in many undergraduate and graduate social science programs. I was lucky and had professors that taught me APA early, and they regularly reinforced the importance of properly citing sources. Truly, APA citation is not as difficult as it appears. All it really takes, is practice and repetition. Occasionally, there will be some harder to cite sources that you come across (citing court cases immediately comes to mind), but those are rare and there are resources to help give you quick answers. I will review those resources shortly.

First, I want to warn against using websites or applications that cite material for you. I will not provide links to these sites because they are unreliable and consistently have errors. Plus, any little change in APA style might not be quickly reflected in these applications. In fact, there are some applications that have easy to spot problems that "out" the students using them when I am reading their papers. Plus, you go to college to learn, so you might as well learn APA citation.

So, where can you go for help?

• The best overall source for help with APA citation is without a doubt, the APA Purdue OWL (Purdue Online Writing Lab). I consider the Purdue OWL to be the best source of help for APA citation questions. They provide a user-friendly menu to find solutions for your problems, and also provide a "sample APA paper" that is very useful for comparing to your own research paper.

• Another decent source for help is the APA Style Help page. They also have their own blog.

• A third resource I have found is provided at Baker College's website. They have a useful APA Guide that includes links to APA tutorials and other resources. Again, I warn against using the links they provide for automatic citation applications.

 To conclude, APA may seem difficult to learn, but it is not ac scary as it may initially seem. While you may not ever truly master the citation style, you can easily learn the basics. As always, practice makes perfect. Thank you for reading.

For more information on my education, research interests, and publications, please check out Daniel Kavish on the web. you can also check out a short biography page for Daniel Kavish here.