Active Learning in Practice: Integrating the Digital Mastering APA Style
Student Workbook in a Canvas Course
Presenters: Vanaja Nethi, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Abraham S. Fischler
College of Education and School of Criminal Justice and Kate Ramunda,
Engagement Team, Vital Source
Description: Undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines need to develop excellence in
scholarly writing to communicate their ideas to peers in the academic community effectively. One
of the most widely used set of guidelines to help students achieve excellence in scholarly writing is
the APA Style. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the main
resource for this.
In this session, the presenters will introduce a new digital-only resource, Mastering APA Style
Student Workbook (
https://apastyle.apa.org/products/mastering-apa-style?tab=1) released last year
that matches the organization of The Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association (7e). The resource utilizes active learning, interactive learning, and a data-driven design
to optimize the teaching and learning of the APA Style. Participants in the session will be guided
through the process of setting up an account to get access to the ‘digital bundle’ of both the
Mastering APA Style Student Workbook and The Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association (7e). The account is valid for 30 days after the conference for
participants to continue to explore this novel digital resource.
During the session, participants will have hands-on experience with the ‘learn by doing’ approach,
which is central to the design of this Mastering APA Style Student Workbook. They will
experience the interactive features of the formative practice questions and the unique features of
the ‘digital bundle’. They will learn about the rich analytics that enables individualized student
support and, finally, how to integrate this digital resource into a Canvas course.
Learning Outcomes:
o Set up an account to access the digital Mastering APA Style Student Workbook.
o Experience active learning by doing activities in the digital Workbook.
o Experience interactive learning (links lead to relevant sections of the APA Manual).
o Describe how to integrate the digital Workbook into a Canvas course.
o Discuss how to engage in data-driven teaching-learning (monitor student engagement and
learning using the Learning Dashboard to provide targeted support).
o Describe how to export student data from the Gradebook.
