I find it extremely important to stress how amazing an open textbook is. For the sake of providing free and accessible resources for students, but for IDS specifically to have the opportunity to contribute is empowering. Seeing peer additions to an educational and professional resource is revolutionary.

"We don't need no stinkin' moodle!" -Robin DeRosa. #IDSintro shares emphasis on students taking responsibility for their education and IDS does just that through ePorts. It's amazing the empowerment one can feel when allowed to share educational and professional work on a platform that is all theirs.

I believe IDS is saving students in two ways- providing inspiring educational and innovative freedom as well as expanding access to opportunity when all hope can feel lost.

I honestly did not know that before 2014 IDS was not teaching under an open pedagogy approach...this makes me inquisitive as to how it was taught and what the program was like. Obviously the purpose of this post is not to talk about the history of the IDS program, but now I am certainly curious about what it was like before I started!

I love learning online, but I do have to say that I often get lost in the awesome sources I find and loose track of what is what! I need to keep a detailed list of what resources hold the most meaning and what exactly I can get out of them.

Wait a minute, is this what we are working on becoming through our work on the ePort? Specifically our research articles? It is wonderful that we are given the opportunity to be a scholar and share our work process with the whole world.

Open practices expand the learning field. The educational capabilities of the internet stretch farther than ever. Students should be allowed opportunities to expand their knowledge through the internet.

I love that it states educational opportunity is a basic human right, yet it has become so unattainable for so many. Hard to reach, yet so important as you can not get anywhere these days without a bachelors degree. We have lots of work to do and I applaud everything IDS, OER, and Open Pedagogy is doing for this cause.

Access and affordability. Literally and figuratively in all senses of the word free.

This is huge! There is often a disconnect between classroom and everyday learning which is where I feel some students lose interest and responsibility in their learning.

Most of us know twitter for social media use as a personal tool. I feel that kids our age rarely use it for professional networking. I love that we do because I feel supported by my peers and I am learning so much from what I find shared by acaprofs.

Interdisciplinary studies focuses on a pedagogy which supports availability and accessibility. Connected learning looks like everything we do in our IDS courses!

Robin says it all the time how it's always the teachers teaching, with little input from students when it should be a collaborative effort. IDS allows us to teach our teachers a little sumthin sumthin :)

Funny to think that it was once for the wealthy, but not it's a resources to help gain wealth. Without a college degree these days, you can barely get a reasonable, respectable job. Education creates a future us, but there was a time where you had to be a "future"- be somebody, in order to go to college.

Reflection and evaluation is a key part of any process for absolutely anything and everything we do. In the classroom, on projects, at our jobs, in our personal lives- without evaluation we wouldn't have evolution..maybe, if that makes sense.

Crazy that it is such a simple word, but it can have so much meaning and fluidity depending on the person.

Amazing how far things have come. I think it would be amazing to have an academy open to the elements, but love that we have large institutions that offer the widest array of disciplines with ways to study in class or at home.

I cant believe you could obtain a degree from television courses!! I would love that. I take many online classes and find it so cool that you could do the same by watching lectors being broadcasted on television. I just wonder how they handled assessments of the students learning.

Crazy how a woman founded the university and helped shape academia as we know it today, BUT we still have issues accepting women as holding high power positions?! Crazy

I wish we had more one-on-one opportunities in our academic careers. I know there are opportunities for it, but very rarely do we form platonic relationships with our academic professors. I feel there is more to learn from platonic relationships with out academic elders as we get more in-depth and have more real world conversations about our academic interests.

Very true statement, specifically the ending stating that it shapes who we become in our careers after graduation. So often do we decide our career paths based on the core discipline educations we have received. Our choices are shaped by what we like or dislike in our learning that stems from the disciplines that are taught starting in elementary school.

Can you say research article!! As we have to document how we came about our sources and their importance to the finalized piece, we are explaining our methodology.

Looking at this point differently in IDS Sem by thinking about how I am going to study the content my program through the applied project. Sometimes methods are clear, but when you want to study/showcase work, methods of doing so might be hard.

Working on doing this to find the perfect research topic! It is very hard to do, but important sometimes to break things down to find the root information!!

LOVE. Although some might say IDS is the best, single disciplines are just as good! Without them we wouldn't be able to form IDS programs. I believe IDS is the best, but that does not denote my appreciation for the disciplines I am studying.

I feel many IDS programs hold novelty as some I have read about are not the most common or ones I've ever even though existed. They are creative, thoughtful, and meaningful in an ordinary, yet extraordinary way.

"The action, process, or result of combining or uniting" Synonyms- combination, union, blend, mixture, fusion, coalescence, synthesis **I had to look up the word so thought I'd share just incase anyone else needed!

This is where IDS sem works on the research project and it all comes together for me know. Being able to be an interdisciplinarian is more than studying more than one discipline- it is about being able to use the study AND question structure of knowledge within our fields.

This feels important to note because much of our life we spend time learning to learn for the academic world. But working through IDS and being transdiscipline (I think I just made that up), allows us to learn for the sake of practice.

IDS allows students to specify or broaden their field of study as they are able to create programs that drill down into a topic or broaden study with programs that encompass topics for endless application.

I have discovered many amazing resources since I joined IDS that were never available to me before. Courses, guidance, volunteer opportunities, organizations...the list goes on. There is a divide of the disciplines which makes IDS a bit difficult, but I have faith that soon the difficulties will become less and less.

As we are growing our PLN on twitter, I feel this already. It can be hard to figure out the special, "key words" that will connect us to our specific topics of interest. Each discipline has its' own jargon and it can be even harder figuring out the jargon of an area that combines many disciplines.

These challenges are valid and can easily be addressed if a person is whiling! Interdisciplinary studies is highly dependent on collaboration, but it is also highly independent work especially when first starting off. The learning is individualized by a person's goals and passions, so it is up to the individual to overcome the barriers first.

There is already so much talk about the importance of scholars, there needs to be more talk about the importance of IDS in schools everywhere. The education system has focused heavily on single discipline scholars for so long, that it is time for IDS to be seen in every school to complete the mosaic.

Wonderful comparison. I truly value scholars and masters. The work they do is so important to worldly understanding and my own education.

I find this incredible. The social math of 10,000 hours in relation to the level of knowledge is incredible. Labeling someone as a master seems tricky, but 10,000 hours seems reasonable... I feel that it might take that 10,000 hours to be a "master", but then there should be another large number of hours to continue being a master. Education never stops and all disciplines are always changing so to be a master, one must continue learning with time.

When entering college, I feel we are all so worried about the title of our major and how employers will view it. Why, why, why?! The title of our major should mean little in comparison to our passions, our developed skills, and knowledge. There are so many things I am working on in my current classes that are going to be great to show future employers and they prove more about my abilities than the title of my major. Love being able to focus more on personal development than getting everything in my DegreeWorks checked off.

YES. Let's be disruptive. Educators educate students, not control them or their learning. It is taking way too long to mold the learning experience around what students want/need. The world is always changing, technology is always changing, the population is always changing...why is it so hard to update the educational system???

Oh yes, yes, yes. We spend our entire lives working for retirement. We work and work to save money to rest comfortably when we are almost too old to enjoy life. I want to enjoy life as I live it. I think IDS and being able to create a major around my passions will allow me to live life. Love what you do and live what you love. Thanks IDS!

College is a HUGE step on the continual stairway of advancement. The way this was written, to me, reads that college is just another few years of school. I believe college is one of the biggest determining factors of our future. College is where we are building ourselves and our interests. The entire process of college is very influential. There are many steps after college that shape us and determine our future as well, but I feel the college step is huge.

This is a very interesting thought. I do believe there is a lot more emphasis on order, organization, control, and the process of learning. Education is a serious matter, but sometimes it is taken too serious and literal. I think there needs to be more play and more real world application rather than strict traditional work.

Yes!! In my health courses, I learn so much about how if people do not want to make a change, no matter what you do, they will not change. Outside influences only can do so much, the desire has to come from within. This is the same thing. Finding the relevancy and connection to the learning comes from within and will only be meaningful IF we want it to be.

I feel that by studying relevant material based around our interests and career desires, IDS students are better able to connect with the information. Interdisciplinary studies allows students to gear their learning around the most relevant information to them.

Half of my gen. ed. courses I was asking myself this. I really wish I had been able to take many of the courses I have this past year, at the beginning of my college career. BUT I did not have that option because there are so many restrictions based on majors.

I can absolutely understand this barrier. The world of academia has been based off single disciplines and specialized learning. This thought process has been around for so long that many have ignored the fact that there is interdisciplinary work happening all around. There may be barriers to gaining recognition or securing a job, but that can easily be changed with more IDS awareness and ability of IDS majors to express their unique skills.

Screaming this from the mountain tops!! These sentences encompass IDS. Love this.

I couldn't agree more!!! Communication is KEY. It is very dangerous to go without communication, mutual respect, and collaboration.

I like that the author notes the problem is not confined to just one discipline and not only confined to the past. There will always be problems that are seen as "solved", but they truly aren't. They are in-need of an interdisciplinary outside prospective to point out there is more to the picture.

Go IDS science majors! Science is fascinating and complex. Interdisciplinary thoughts and ideas are 100% needed.

Love this! So so true, IDS creates new pathways to bring the diverging minds together.

I relate this to the individual disciplines thinking one has more relevance or importance over another. I don't have two off the top of my head that would think that way, but I still think about his in regards to how important collaboration is. When disciplines talk to each other, work together, and make each other's ideas feel accepted, thoughts and ideas can emerge that make a huge difference.

I remember having to read The Little Prince when I was in high school, but I never gave it much thought. I really love how relevant this quote is to IDS.

I agree with this. I feel like most of the statements I have read in dismissal of IDS has been because there was a lack of knowledge about the system of learning. I will forever be promoting IDS to others to spread awareness of how much the program has to offer.

I am so obsessed with Robin! Sounds creepy, I know, but she is amazing! Wonderful person, truly excited about teaching her students and more whiling to help students more than anyone I have ever met. Forever grateful for the confidence and guidance she has given me when I was extremely close to giving up on school.

I love this! During clinical, I watched the nurses use these and they were very cool. There is a lot of interdisciplinary work in the medical field and it makes me very excited to be a part of that!

I think funding as well as more awareness is key for the future of IDS. I had never heard of IDS until I left the nursing program last May. I had no idea this wonderful world existed and that makes me sad! This is such a wonderful program and more people need to know about what it has to offer!

These students could be labeled at a disadvantage, but there is and always will be a need for students of a single discipline. We should not be bashing traditional disciplines. We must support learning as a whole, no division between interdisciplinary majors and traditional majors as each is important in society.

I want to highlight the "meaningful career" part here because there are absolutely times where students question why they are taking certain classes or what they will get out of them. Higher education needs to be about making each learning opportunity meaningful to evoke the drive and passion students have for the career they are pursuing.

Although I still have a love for nursing and hope to possibly return, at this point in my life and at PSU, I felt extremely trapped. Going through the same process as other people can be great because we have steps to follow and people to lean on. But IDS has allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and learn to depend on myself; listen to myself more and better than ever.

This is great! IDS absolutely encourages, supports, and enhances the student's metacognition. This feels important when thinking about skills we leave the IDS program with. Being able to be aware of our learning and thinking process is wonderful. Understanding how we learn best and how to support our thoughts is great.

This so true for me too. Sometimes we get lost in thinking inside the box, sticking to a strict discipline schedule of learning; we lose the ability to be creative and think outside of the box. Thinking abstractly is as important as thinking critically. The two go hand in hand.

For a little bit of time, I absolutely dreaded going to classes. I felt so beaten down, I did not enjoy learning. I definitely loved nursing and loved what I was learning, but I did not love the learning process. I felt lost. With IDS, I have found my love of learning again and I am very grateful.

I think the politicians are trying to place all the funding blame on IDS and that just can not be done. No one in IDS would want the core disciplines taken away because we understand the value of that knowledge. This is the part of IDS where there is still so much the general public needs to learn about IDS.

This sounds exactly like what we read in Terms & Concepts "Benefits of Interdisciplinary", I think that was the one...anyways the reading that listed the 10 or so things we were getting out of IDS/could present as skills to future employers. If Forbes is saying that is what the workplace is looking for, then we are doing pretty great.

I absolutely agree with this statement. Before I found IDS, I was apart of nursing where the core group was stuck together from the start. I saw my "community" in almost all of my classes including the pre-recs., and then we were completely isolated from the rest of the college in our third year where we took every single class together in the same room for the entire semester. I miss having a close group of people to lean on.

YESSSS, solve those wicked problems. Go IDS!

I think this is wonderful, but also scary. I think to make the most out of the interdisciplinary degree, the student needs to enter college with an idea of the unique major they want to create. Student's needs to "assume the role of captain" throughout their entire university experience, but they should not enter college straight into IDS if they are simply not sure what they want to major in.

So true! Graduates are expected to do more and know more. Many jobs require previous history in the exact job, but they expect so much that it feels impossible. Hopefully, by having an interdisciplinary degree, employers will see how much we can bring to the table without the years and years of previous training.

I think this is a wonderful thought and I completely agree. Although, most still feel lost and have no idea what they want to do with the rest of their life at age 18 (come on high school, you have to prepare us better for the real world), allowing creative and intellectual freedom will support our growth. I understand that parents might not like the idea because college is only costing more and more. There are kids who pay their own way, but many that attend based off of loans in their parent's names. Because of that parents want their kids in and out of school with a set goal, following the path and doing only what is necessary for the degree.

For the sake of some disciplines and sub-disciplines, I think a "product" is okay, but in my mind, most need to be an experience. If we are not experiencing what we are learning, the changes of retaining the knowledge will probably go down. It makes me mad, but I do feel that coming to college, I did purchase a product....sadly I was not happy and no refund was offered (lol) Luckily I found IDS!

I am questioning if this is in regards to education as a whole, high school, or college. I know we are talking about college and the next sentence goes on to say university, but at first I read this statement as education including high school. Which shocked me because when I graduated, I felt I was barely taught anything to assist me in the real work. BUT in regards to college, yes, this is the meaning of college know and it's interesting to think about how it truly wasn't long ago that this change was made.

We had talked about this in our last few readings. I agree that it is very important to know and understand. Even more such, because we are merging disciplines so we should be thankful they exist in the first place so we can have creative freedom based off the foundation already set in place.

Wonderful closing statement. The word choice is perfect. I too believe IDS will grow to new heights faster than the rest of the world can understand. I am excited for other's to learn and grow from it.

Dermatology fascinates me and I never really thought of how interdisciplinary the study was! Understanding of nutrition and external factors play a huge roll in the skin's condition so it really takes unity of knowledge to know how to work in dermatology.

This examples touches home for me as my previous nursing experience has taught me that the medical field is highly interdisciplinary AND my interests in health advocacy of family planning/young children require an interdisciplinary approach.

I agree this can be seen from history and the consequences can be scary. So often we are taught to be open minded and IDS does that.

The difference between being multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary is key. Lack of integration can be okay for some problems, but for many other situations that lack will cause more problems than the original.

Such a perfect introduction!! These first two sentences literally encompass everything we have learned so far. LOVE

This closing statement is important to me because I feel emerging into multiple discipline communities will be as beneficial as it has been to create my own major. Joining associations and organizations across multiple disciplines will further strengthen my continued education and career resources.

I think about how many resources teachers gain from the conferences they attend; the teaching resources, subject resources, and the people they meet. They might all be in one discipline, but everyone is unique along with how they engage with the discipline.

I felt they were all friends as I know they shared much of their personal lives with each other, but I know much of their time together was learning from each other. It makes so much sense that they would be learning and helping each other as they all had something different to bring to their discipline because we all learn and teach differently.

I absolutely saw this in high school with many of my teachers from the same discipline. The English teachers and the Math teachers especially had cliques.

When the academic world was formally being established there was a need for building disciplines to solve social problems and build understanding of things in the most basic nature. There were so many unanswered questions about the world and the first educators and researchers answered them in creating a discipline to study. Because of the ground work the first education systems put down, we are able to merge disciplines to solve new problems and explore new worlds. There was a time where studying single disciplines was needed, now it is time to study what is wanted.

Thank you IDS! Thank you, thank you. I would be so lost without IDS.

Great quote in support of why interdisciplinary studies should be accredited at a much higher level than they are in today's society! Society is changing and interdisciplinary study opportunities are needed more than ever!!

Very interesting to think about going to school without these disciplines. The disciplines listed are essential to our educational system, I have a hard time thinking about what it would be like if we didn't have them.

Love that MOOC gave the ability to thousands of people to take the course they wanted, when they wanted. To have an attendance of thousands is insane. I get so frustrated when I find a course I would love to take, but all the seats are full because the seat offering is so limited. To not be restricted by "seat number" feels like an amazing thing.

Going to have to look this up because I am baffled by how this worked!! I am shocked I had never heard of this before.

Really interesting that there were no degrees or certificates for the work done as today if you have no paper to show for your learning you might as well not have done it. All people seem to care about is having that diploma to show you completed the program. BUT, I love that there was such a high interest in continuing education outside the formal classroom that distance learning existed.

Obsessed with this. Awesome that he realized there is no best method or focus for learning because everyone is different and everyone's passions and abilities are too.

Really interesting to think about schools being mainly based around religion when now mentions of religion teaching are not welcomed in public school. My cousins attend private schools where there is focus on religion and the philosophies including a monthly prayer assembly. But for most people today, we are told to keep our religion to ourselves.

Round of applause for Fatima! Where would we be without women ;)

I am so fascinated by the fact that so many of the student's traveled for the lectures! I want to know how often the lectures were, how long they were, things of such nature because they must have been great if people were traveling so much to learn. As a commuter student, I love that from the start of time people have been whiling to travel for a good education.

I agree with Tiffany! I totally wish this was a "thing" because there are many times I absolutely adore a teacher and wish I could spend more one on one time learning from them!

I absolutely learn more when I feel a teacher has out of class experience in their field and when they speak with passion! Obviously, we cannot base learning on preachings of interest, there needs to be evidence based learning, but life experiences and stories truly add to the learning experience and connect-ability.

They always want us to express which class is our favorite or what we like learning about the most, but never ask what we know about what we are learning form. Now that I start thinking about disciplines and classes I've taken, I am curious about why they were first offered or how a discipline came to life.

This feels like one of the most important aspects to me. There is always a why, and sometimes the why is the biggest driving factor of our work. The connection between us and the work we are doing is so unique. Why we are creating this major, why we want to work interdisciplinary, why we want to study what we are studying. All important.

I think working to use both methods is great! One or the other is fine, but for a lot of the majors we are creating, having evidenced based data and practical personal data is great.

This is why we write about our contracts. To explain the "what" of what we are studying!

These concepts make total sense to me. Although I tend to need to see the bigger picture before I start working, once I understand all the parts, I am able to work piece by piece to complete my work.

When I first started my IDS career, I wanted to build an Allied Health major with the abundance of courses I have already taken. My definition of Allied Health did not completely differ from a dictionary definition, BUT the courses I wanted to use to create that major were different than majors already created at different universities. I quickly became too afraid that my program was not going to be supported or recognized as it was different. Accreditation might still be hard with my Health Advocacy and Promotion major, but I will continue to explain and answer questions until it is understood!

Why do we have to be so divided??! SO happy I found interdisciplinary studies to guide me to building connections to fill the divide. Separating knowledge and ideas by uniform majors or disciplines feels so wrong. What do we have to lose when we allow students to collaborate, when we allow ideas to come together for the greater good? We gain more with interdisciplinary studies than I had ever known. Proud to be a part of IDS.

There is absolutely something so beautiful and exciting about seeing how things connect because that is LIFE. Everything we are involved in is intertwined with another thing. I wanted a major that allowed me to see how things connect so I can go out create solutions that connect.

So true! Avoiding the cookie cutter pathway can be so valuable when taking going head on at a problem. Some answers are straight forward, but in most of the real world it takes many perspectives and ideas to answer a question. Often times, the most useful information will come from the person you least expect; the person with the most information of different subjects.

So many things can be accomplished with fresh eyes. Looking at things from new perspectives allows you to possibly learn new ideas and things you wouldn't have thought of before.

Comprehensive perspective. A lot of times we are told to "look at the bigger picture". Being able to look at the bigger picture involves having knowledge about many aspects of the picture. Interdisciplinary studies allows students to acquire knowledge from all four corners of the picture.

The difference between them is apparent, but I don't think the choice can be as such for most. Doing interdisciplinary work, I believe, is what most of us set out to do. We want to create an interdisciplinary degree to guide our lives into work that utilizes the uniqueness of our knowledge. Many of our degrees are aimed at doing interdisciplinary work as our goals unite two or more disciplines. Using interdisciplinary, being critical, is more complex. I feel some of us will right away, but this might be something that comes with time. Extremely important work to question the structure of our learning and performance within our chosen fields.

Love!! This is the first time I have heard of Transdisciplinarity and it still feels foreign, but I absolutely understand this part. This support for why bringing disciplines together is so important. Linking opposites should not be so scary as opposites attract and there are almost always ways they successful work together. Linking the academic world and the practical world is honestly the most practical idea to me and it is baffling why that can be so foreign to so many.

I like that it is pointed out that both are valid ways of bringing academic perspectives together. Both are ways to unite learnings of different natures to broaden the learning experience. I am glad I am creating an interdisciplinary degree to create something unique, but I am not devaluing multidisciplinary thoughts and ideas as they still bring things of different natures together.

I really had no idea what the true difference between inter- and multidisciplinary. Absolutely make sense now!! I think there are many things in our lives that are multi-, but we lack a lot of interdisciplinary.

This is great! The whole goal of creating an interdisciplinary degree is to specify and broaden our education. Create a unique major to meet the needs of our interests and desires to pursue new career opportunities outside the box.

The world is so large, so many people, so many places. There are new professional opportunities everywhere, but we might never know about them. Creating a tool to connect us with broader audiences is so important. It definitely takes time and effort to build a broad audience, but it is great to teach students how to get that process started.

I know we have a choice of how we write our pieces that will be on our ePorts, but already I fee like some of what we have to share is not directed to an audience of choice. I understand that we are just starting out, but after we are out of school are people of our professional networks really going to want to read about our thoughts on providing students with their own domains? Some of this writing might be tough as the audience is not to our specific professional network, but I am excited to learn how it all works and excited to start becoming more comfortable sharing my work with the world!

THIS. There seems to be a fine line between the two and I am hoping to be able to distinguish the two for myself to be able to produce work I feel I won other than publishing assignments!

This really resinates with me. I like the idea of my own ePort, but I am struggling on how to present my thoughts to the reader. Right now the reader might be a few other students in the IDS course and our professor. We are getting graded so naturally I want to appeal to our professor, but this ePort represents more than the grade. It'll take time, but hopefully my writing on the ePort wont seem too "essay".

I don't think I have a good grip on the full meaning of these statements, but it feels important to mark it. Saving these statements for later reflection!

UMW's initiative is an awesome idea. In a world consumed by technology, it's great to start teaching student's how to use it for professional growth.

A personal domain, in my opinion, is just as much of a transcript as an "official" transcript is. With quality work showcased on an ePort, students can better express their knowledge and schools can see it first hand. I know I am able to get A's in courses where I walk away at the end of the semester saying "wait what did I learn?". Or even in a course I did not do so well in, I might have had a few great essays or projects that show more than the letter grade. Grades are all relative in the grand scheme of knowledge.

This feels important to bring up more often as people are more motivated by what they create and contribute than the grade. School is so much about the grade, students rarely care what they are learning because they are so pressed to get the best grade. Getting an education is about the experience and knowledge-forcing it to be about grades diminishes the importance of the content.

Children today already have a huge online presence which makes it feel important to promote using social media in different ways. Before we make people feel bad for what they are sharing or saying online, we should be educating on constructively sharing thoughts to benefit the followers.

It's time to start showing students how to use social media for educational or informative purposes rather than simply scare them.

Each social media domain has it's own purpose. Facebook for an encompassing sense of connectivity with friends, family, the news..etc., Instagram for photos, videos, and twitter for condensed, precise thoughts. Each can be used personally or professionally. I only have used the for personal matters, but I really have already enjoyed looking at twitter for a more professional use. It feels strange to use it in such an "adult" way, but it's very useful and more student's should be opened to the different ways we can use social media.

We go to college to get a better education with the end goal of a career. This process is for us. I agree that we should be the subjects of our learning because it is our intellectual property that will be getting the job, making a difference, and supporting future generations.

We pay so much money for an education that gets deleted once a course ends. I hyper-organize holders on my computer with all my work so I still have it. But to share work we feel is worthy and has meaning, feels so important in a highly technological world.

I completely agree that this is a good idea for today's students. At the university level, much of our work is submitted online and then forgotten. Especially working interdisciplinary, it feels important to provide a space to students to learn, grown, and share ideas of multiple disciplines.