hormones in the body (i.e. cortisol), while releasing higher levels of endorphins, allowing for feelings of relaxation and pleasure.

The repetitive posture that is taken in sitting and looking down at a phone, computer, tablet, etc. causes the muscles labeled in red to become tight and shortened while those in blue become weak and inactive. This results in the shortened muscles pulling the joints toward one another with weak muscles unable to counteract it. This posture puts the joints in poor alignment, leading to increased pain and risk of injury. The good news is that stretching the tight muscles and strengthening the weak ones can help to correct these syndromes and put the body back into a neutral posture.

etc.

An uneven and unstable pelvis could create torsion of the low back muscles, causing pain and undue stress on the spine. Because the pelvis and hip joints are adjacent to the upper leg, the muscles of the thighs could easily effect the hip, which could then effect the lower back. Likewise, the muscles of the mid back and shoulders could effect the lower back.

Insulin resistance is concerning in and of itself, but it can also be a precursor to type II diabetes. When glucose levels in the blood are elevated, insulin signals the muscle and liver cells to uptake that excess glucose and either utilize it for fuel or store it for later use. In insulin resistance, however, cells become overwhelmed and do not respond to insulin’s signals, therefore they do not take up the excess glucose. This causes the blood glucose levels to increase, which stimulates the pancreas to release even more insulin despite the cells’ inability to respond to insulin’s signals. Meanwhile, the cells think they are being starved of glucose, when in reality there is plenty available in the blood. It is not completely understood what causes insulin resistance, but one can see why it becomes a problem.

Weight loss is recommended in patients with sleep apnea, as well. According to the American College of Physicians, weight loss is the most effective treatment for sleep apnea (Watson, 2015).

instructed to run a marathon

Respiratory diseases including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), sleep apnea, and pulmonary hypertension are considered chronic diseases of the lungs and airways.

Without getting too deep into the physiological explanations and medical definitions, it has been proven that with these adaptations blood pressure and resting heart rate are lowered, blood oxygen levels are raised, cellular respiration improves, the ability to transport carbon dioxide out of the body improves (thus regulating pH), oxygen uptake and utilization improves (including in brain cells – improving cognition), blood vessels maintain elasticity, and the risks associated with all types of CVD are lowered.

When we exercise

.

it’s

WHO

(Booth & Laye, 2009).

fat

.

outdoor enthusiast’s utopia and cities like Boulder offer substantial healthy food choices.

Colorado is a fairly easy one to figure out, though.

while states like Colorado stand out as

Beyond the aesthetic exists an ocean of physical and mental ailments that are easily preventable with physical activity and healthy lifestyle changes. There are those who blame this crisis on technology; youngsters and adults alike appear to be glued to their devices everywhere we look, and there are those who place blame on our busy lifestyles and poor time-management, but it’s more complicated than that.

20 percent of all deaths of people over age 35 are linked to physical inactivity (Bergland, 2015).

sedentary [sed-n-ter-ee] adj. 1. characterized by or requiring a sitting posture: a sedentary occupation.  2. accustomed to sit or rest a great deal or to take little exercise. 3. Chiefly Zoology. a. abiding in one place; not migratory. b. pertaining to animals that move about little or are permanently attached to something, as a barnacle.

Is this shareable?

Approaches education from a “commons” orientation, advocating for the sharing of resources, ideas, and power; Bakes access and accessibility into the design of its assignments, courses, programs, and institutions; Empowers learners to contribute to– not just consume– knowledge; Connects learners with their scholarly and professional communities of practice.

Our office is open weekdays plus one evening a week (and generally on Sundays as well). Unlike most academic departments, students can walk in anytime and get help directly from us (from me, our Program Support Administrator, our paid Peer Mentors) on technology (ePorts, annotation tools, Twitter, etc), writing, class assignments, program applications, general advising, etc. Everyone who works in our office– faculty, staff, and students– are qualified to assist students with all of the components of being a part of our major. This drop-in ethos has been hugely helpful to keeping our retention levels high, since it’s harder to slip through the cracks when there is near-constant support available. We also have a commitment to replying to student emails within 24 hours (generally within 30 minutes) and the ability to use low-tech videoconferencing (usually through appearin) to accommodate commuters and online students more easily.

Students (if they want– opt-out is always an option) create their own ePorts through the Domain of One’s Own program; they contribute to the program-created OER textbook that we use; they engage in a Connected Learning PLN-building experience to grow their own custom networks over the course of their educations; and they are made aware of the program’s support scaffolds that are in place to help them face barriers (more about all of this later).

Second, we serve students in interdisciplinary fields that are well-established at other colleges but which Plymouth State, due to its size and resources as a small, rural, public university, does not offer as a discrete major. Most Physical and Occupational Therapy students currently build programs through #PlymouthIDS, as do Pre-Med students.

The program has existed since 1974, but from 1974-2014, we averaged 10 total students per year enrolled in the major. In 2014, we developed an Open Pedagogy approach to the curriculum, and since then, we’ve grown in enrollments by 1,150%. This is not a story about scale. This is a story about what happens when a program refocuses pedagogy around learners, and retools program design in order to create more flexible structures to support degree completion and student agency.

By integrating these fields within the interdisciplinary studies, the information has become more advanced and any missing gaps of information have started to closed in due to the overlap of information.

Business. Flying people around the world is a huge business, and there is a large market. There is tons of advertising, price competition, sales, customer service; the list goes on and on. There are many employees behind the scenes that deal with the planning and logistics that customers don’t realize.

First of all, when you are on a plane, you are 40,000 FEET IN THE AIR. How is this possible? Science! Physics to be exact

Because at the end of the day, your opinion and your thoughts matter, and you need to make those important to you before they are important to anyone else.

Secondly, being able to think abstractly, is very significant to me. It is so important to have different ideas that may even seem impossible. In today’s world one of the top aspects an employer will look for when hiring an individual, is creativity.

An example of an attitudinal barrier is the political climate of the United States. Conservatives and liberals are divided by their points-of-view and they’re unwilling, or perhaps incapable, of exchanging perspectives. Each party represents a cultural identity and people choose a party based on their values.  To reinforce their values, people surround themselves with media that reflects their political views, creating a self-propagating “echo chamber.” The attitudinal barrier between democrats and republicans makes bipartisan compromise almost impossible.

That’s how long it takes to be a master in any field. Or, at least, that’s what Malcolm Gladwell—renowned journalist, author, and speaker—argues. If someone spends 10,000 hours of hands-on, in-depth, focused energy in a discipline, he will be a master of it. That’s eight hours every day for nearly three and a half years. If the practitioner is an undergraduate student, that’s about the time it will take her to finish her bachelor’s degree. If she goes to college and studies a single discipline—like biology—and doesn’t take any classes except ones that pertain to her major, she will graduate as a near-master in her field.

everyone is always already doing it

Many post-graduation opportunities don’t even ask about students’ majors in college because they’re more interested in who candidates are as people.

If students are living their lives in preparation for life, when will they start living?

“Why do I need to learn this? I’ll never use it in real life.”

In a study conducted by William Newell and James Davis in 1988, researchers found that students who study interdisciplinarity are more likely to develop: affective cognitive skills; reading, writing, speaking, and thinking skills; higher curiosity for learning; more creativity and originality in thought processes; and an ability to integrate traditional ideas with current ideas. The benefits of finding creative and integrative ways to combine disciplines far outweigh the disadvantages of interdisciplinarity.

One of the benefits of a common core trajectory is the sense of community it brings to education, a sense of community that some interdisciplinary students may not experience in the same way that traditional students experience it.

If an applicant can’t work in a team, write a grant, or engage meaningfully with other people, he may be turned away from a job or his career may not flourish.

Charles Eliot, President of Harvard University during this educational transition, played a key role in the development of the “liberal arts education.” In many ways, Eliot’s radical views on education are still relevant today. For example, one of his most influential reforms was advocacy for a curriculum based on students’ interests rather than a pre-established curriculum. He believed that a student, by age eighteen, was old enough to select his own courses and pursue his own imagination (Zakaria 54-7).

Until the industrial revolution, education was dominated by religion and classical texts, exploring questions of morality and a higher truth, but with the advent of technology at the end of the nineteenth century, education was expected to prepare workers for the rapidly industrializing economy. Specialized education was in high demand, changing the structure of many colleges and universities across the United States of America and the world. Around this time, disciplines were divided into sub-disciplines, like chemistry and anthropology, and many universities emphasized their disciplinary resources and research facilities. Knowledge transformed from an experience to a product.

The author, Gail Rosenblum, then lists the psychologists, school social workers, case managers, occupational therapists, physical therapists and nurses who are present in developing and preserving a child’s mental well-being.

Our society is only starting to get the ball rolling on interdisciplinary communication.We know from many of history’s examples that when particular disciplines rule over a single issue, myriad unforeseen consequences may result. For example, Repko references the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers that killed the salmon fishery industry in that region. The architects and accountants orchestrating the building of the dams could have considered the environmental impact, but it wasn’t their specialty, so they didn’t have the insight on potential impacts than an environmental scientist would have had.

With new information and societal pushes, resources have evolved to allow students to choose what they want to study even if it is not the most prestigious or highest paying discipline. Students get to choose what they want to study based on their own personal passions, unlike in the eighteenth and nineteenth century when there were limited fields of study.

College began to evolve from an elite privilege for only certain kinds of wealthy or powerful people to an essential career resource that could benefit any student.

After the Revolutionary War, students were taught how to reflect on past history to make a difference in their future.

The earliest recording of an academic discipline, similar to the ones we know today, was with the Greeks in Socrates’ time. During this time and extending closer to the present, education was strictly for the upper class. Also during this time, education was religion- and military-centered versus the disciplinary-focused curriculum we know today.

Surprisingly, distance learning has been around since the early 1700’s and went by the name “correspondence courses.”  Students who took these courses were sent pamphlets and textbooks through the United States Postal Service.  After completing the chapter, they would mail it back and request the next one.  There were no degrees awarded after completion, but it was a way for students to gain extra knowledge and skills.  Distance education began to branch out in 1921 with the use of live radio shows.

Some sources say the first documented academy was started by the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato.  He spent much of his youth learning from the great philosopher, Socrates.

charlatans posing as experts

We must rid it of unnecessary and wasteful duplication, and create coherence and integrity in our curricula.

We are told that if you are conversant with at least 80 percent of them you can confidently engage in “meaningful conversations with other experienced managers.”

While that may sound esoteric, especially to some outside the academy, it is really just shorthand for saying that the complexity of the world requires us to have a better understanding of the relationships and connections between all fields that intersect and overlap — economics and sociology, law and psychology, business and history, physics and medicine, anthropology and political science.

Thomas Jefferson fervently believed that a nation cannot be ignorant and free;

“will make a positive difference in people’s lives.”

The web is a network for conversations, and if students still see their audience as a teacher with a red pen, then nothing changes.

Universities across the country are giving personal web domains to their students. I picked andrewrikard.com. Davidson College, where I’m a junior, pitched it as an opportunity to own my own data. I could create a WordPress blog from scratch. I could play with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and create experimental projects for courses. I could even keep the domain after graduation. It is a living portfolio, my representation in the digital world.

Many students simply want to know what their professors want and how to give that to them. But if what the professor truly wants is for students to discover and craft their own desires and dreams, a personal cyberinfrastructure provides the opportunity. To get there, students must be effective architects, narrators, curators, and inhabitants of their own digital lives.6 Students with this kind of digital fluency will be well-prepared for creative and responsible leadership in the post-Gutenberg age. Without such fluency, students cannot compete economically or intellectually, and the astonishing promise of the digital medium will never be fully realized.

For students who have relied on these aids, the freedom to explore and create is the last thing on their minds, so deeply has it been discouraged.

So, how might colleges and universities shape curricula to support and inspire the imaginations that students need? Here’s one idea. Suppose that when students matriculate, they are assigned their own web servers — not 1GB folders in the institution’s web space but honest-to-goodness virtualized web servers of the kind available for $7.99 a month from a variety of hosting services, with built-in affordances ranging from database maintenance to web analytics. As part of the first-year orientation, each student would pick a domain name. Over the course of the first year, in a set of lab seminars facilitated by instructional technologists, librarians, and faculty advisors from across the curriculum, students would build out their digital presences in an environment made of the medium of the web itself. They would experiment with server management tools via graphical user interfaces such as cPanel or other commodity equivalents. They would install scripts with one-click installers such as SimpleScripts. They would play with wikis and blogs; they would tinker and begin to assemble a platform to support their publishing, their archiving, their importing and exporting, their internal and external information connections. They would become, in myriad small but important ways, system administrators for their own digital lives.3 In short, students would build a personal cyberinfrastructure, one they would continue to modify and extend throughout their college career — and beyond.

Then an answer seemed to appear: template-driven, plug-and-play, turnkey web applications that would empower all faculty, even the most mulish Luddites, to “put their courses online.” Staff could manage everything centrally, with great economies of scale and a lot more uptime. Students would have the convenience of one-stop, single-sign-on activities, from registering for classes to participating in online discussion to seeing grades mere seconds after they were posted. This answer seemed to be the way forward into a world of easy-to-use affordances that would empower faculty, staff, and students without their having to learn the dreaded alphabet soup of HTML, FTP, and CSS. As far as faculty were concerned, the only letters they needed to know were L-M-S. Best of all, faculty could bring students into these environments without fear that they would be embarrassed by their lack of skill or challenged by students’ unfamiliar innovations.

Within a week, the kids were able to understand what their options were and how their site was affected by changes they made. As time went on, we talked a lot more about technical issues (backup, recovery, privacy options, hosting laws in different countries, etc). But we also talked a lot more about digital citizenship, safety, control, design, etc. The kids saw the site much more as their own and their responsibility.”

One student uses her domain to showcase her artwork. Another chronicled her semester abroad. A third student has built a living CV, highlighting her academic research as well as her work experience.

And then – contrary to what happens at most schools, where a student’s work exists only inside a learning management system and cannot be accessed once the semester is over – the domain and all its content are the student’s to take with them. It is, after all, their education, their intellectual development, their work.

But almost all arguments about student privacy, whether those calling for more restrictions or fewer, fail to give students themselves a voice, let alone some assistance in deciding what to share online. Students have little agency when it comes to education technology – much like they have little agency in education itself.