Visiting Neuroscientist Leads Psychology Workshop for Faculty

On Thursday, Sept. 3, the Academy faculty welcomed neuroscientist and developmental psychologist Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang to lead a faculty workshop which introduced the basics of her research—a study of magnificent importance in modern psychology. The presentation and discussion in the morning were followed in the early afternoon by an open meeting of the curriculum committee.

Immordino-Yang, according to the profile page of the USC Rossier School of Education, is “an affective neuroscientist and human development psychologist who studies the neural, psychophysiological and psychological bases of social emotion, self-awareness and culture and their implications for learning, development and schools.”

She is an Associate Professor of Education at the Rossier School, Associate Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute and member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program Faculty at the University of Southern California. Her work has received numerous awards including the FABBS Foundation Early Career Impact Award, 2015 and the AERA Early Career Award, 2014.

“It was important for the faculty to consider how intimately intertwined emotions and cognition are.”

According to Dean of Faculty Ethan Shapiro, the idea to bring Immordino-Yang to campus was born in last year’s faculty-led strategic planning workshops. In these workshops, the topic of brain science and research in Immordino-Yang’s field came up often. In addition, several faculty members personally knew Immordino-Yang and her work. Over the course of spring term, the idea to host her on campus became a reality.

Religion instructor Kathleen Brownback co-chaired the Strategic Planning Committee and played a close role in bringing her to campus. Brownback said that a key aspect of Immordino-Yang’s talk was that the human brain most optimally toggles between task orientation and “default mode,” a term used by cognitive psychologists to describe an alert state of mind, but one that is not working on anything in particular.

In her talk, Immordino-Yang noted that the default mode activates in a different place in the brain than task orientation, but that the two enhance each other. She then linked cultivation of the default mode with an ability to be creative and connect with others, to be emotionally aware and to have a sense of self-identity. In addition, she urged others to avoid filling free time with too much “noise,” such as excessive social media, in order to stay in touch with their “interior-selves.”

In Brownback’s words, Immordino-Yang advocated for “constructive internal reflection,” which the Academy already incorporates in its English, Religion, History and Art departments. She also added that a well-integrated mind improves science and math skills because it commands a deeper understanding of facts and concepts.

“In many ways, Exeter already speaks to this [constructive internal] side of us, with lots of reflective writing in class and so on, but we’re also aware that students often feel way too pressured to do this in depth,” Brownback said. “When they do have free time their main priority is therefore—understandably—sleep, or checking up on the Kardashians, or whatever seems like the path of least resistance.”

This year, the Academy and its curriculum committee will work to incorporate Immordino-Yang’s findings into the school’s way of life. The issue has been debated; some faculty members are concerned that academic standards might slip, despite what Immordino-Yang insisted.

“Her research deals with what enables us to do our best academic work—what qualities of mind and mindfulness—as well as to be our best selves,” Brownback said. Music instructor Jon Sakata had a similar take on Immordino-Yang’s talk.

“Mary Helen Immordino-Yang mentioned that the personal is already ‘social’ and that while the Harkness methodology is clearly deeply effective and powerful, there is something to be considered about each of us having the space, time and platforms to explore within and through oneself (outside of group situations),” he said.

Christopher Thurber, psychologist and health instructor, teaches a Psychology 400-level class that covers many aspects of the cognitive neuroscience Immordino-Yang presented.

He found that her research findings brought the “broad concepts of learning and brain science to a richer, more practical level.”

Yet Immordino-Yang’s discoveries presented in the workshop, as Sakata put it, seemed to only be the tip of the large iceberg that constitutes the entire realm of psychology and neuroscience.

“Mary Helen’s workshop seems to have been a small prelude to a much richer fugue of our own agential invention, (self-)intervention, and necessary creative imagination,” he said.

A couple years ago, science instructor Tatiana Waterman looked into Immordino-Yang’s work and was intrigued. Waterman—on sabbatical this term—found herself back on campus to listen to Immordino-Yang’s talk, which she found extremely enlightening and intriguing.

“[Dr. Immordino-Yang’s workshop] was very well worth my time; the information was invaluable, she taught me much and I wish we could have had her for more than one day,” she said. The next step for the Academy is to incorporate all of the knowledge that the faculty gained from Immordino-Yang’s workshop into the everyday teaching at Exeter. Shapiro believes that, from all the positive feedback he has received from the faculty, the Academy will be using “follow-up and take-away that can help us move forward as an Academy.”

Thurber points out that one significant way in which this “moving forward” can happen is by teachers understanding that “emotions motivate, filter and shape our learning.

It was important for the faculty to consider how intimately intertwined emotions and cognition are,” he said.

He continued, expanding his scope to the Academy community as a whole. “My hope is that teachers consider what kind of emotional tone they set in their classes, in part because their students’ learning is a function of their feelings of joy, frustration, anxiety and curiosity,” Thurber said.