In this interactive session, we will survey contemporary mental health challenges, explore the psychology of emotions and consider a variety of teaching practices that support wellbeing (both ours and that of our students). One goal will be to set up a new semester with a fresh sense of possibility.

“You might be surprised at how integrally emotion is woven into the experience of learning. This surprise is rooted in a long history of viewing emotion and cognition … as not only separate but somehow at odds with one another. Increasingly, neuroscience research indicates that the brain systems involved in emotion and those involved in cognition are not, as traditional accounts would have had us believe, separate systems pulling us in opposite directions. Rather, ... overlapping circuits are responsible for both, and the biochemical bases for each are very similar. … Emotions were evolutionarily selected for because they influence motivation.”  - Sarah Rose Cavanagh (2016). The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion