A Path to Improving Students’ Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence involves the ability to recognize and manage moods and emotions in real-world situations, says the author of this article, Matthew Farber. If we look at emotional intelligence as a starting point for development, we can predict both the academic and social success of students.

In the article, the author lists his work experience and the tools he used to develop students' emotional intelligence within Google presentations and Microsoft PowerPoint. He states that one of Pear Deck’s stress-checking tools for students is in a range that shows whether they are in a good “space” to focus or have difficulty managing emotions today.

In addition to Pear Deck, there are a number of other online tools that can be used to develop emotional intelligence in students, which have had the advantage of being used right now in a time of pandemic and a greater focus on online education. Nearpod, Microsoft Teams, Google Forms, are just some of the online checking tools with students that can include reflective activities, as well as mood boards - pictures of emotional faces along with words of emotion (happy, calm, sad) that children click on that match their feelings.

With some of these tools, it is possible to customize the application of Gloria Willcox’s 1982 Feelings Wheel, a visual taxonomy of emotions built around the core of sad, crazy, frightened, joyful, powerful, and calm. 

The author of the article further states that it is possible to use a mood meter tool for reporting emotions similar to the Wheel of Feelings, but slightly different in purpose. The goal here is for people - not just children - to become what Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence founder Marc Brackett calls “emotion scientists”.

In his popular book Permission to Feel, Brackett wrote, “A scientist who feels emotions has the ability to pause even in the most stressful moments and ask: What do I react to? We can learn to recognize and understand all our feelings, integral and secondary, and then respond in useful, proportionate ways - once we acquire emotional skills.”

The mood meter is not a wheel; rather, it represents emotion in four color-specific quadrants that connect moods with energy levels. Along the numbered x and y axes, the red quadrant describes high-energy unpleasant moods, while yellow is where pleasant but energetic emotions are located. The blue zone contains unpleasant, low-energy moods, and the green pleasant, but low-energy moods.

In a diverse classroom, the tools teachers use can become real stewards and guides for the development of emotional intelligence.

Read more about work, tool development, and how you can turn the classroom into a space for development, fun, and student focus in an article on Edutopia.org