Emotions Count

Auburn teacher, Green River students create web app to measure kids’ emotional well-being

Imagine a 4th grade student who’s just learned his parents are getting a divorce. A complicated feeling weighs him down, one he can’t put into words, a terra incognita of adolescent emotion. He wants to talk to someone but doesn’t know how. He finds it hard to concentrate in the classroom, becomes detached. Academic performance suffers, which becomes a source of discouragement, which hurts performance even more. Before long, he’s fallen completely behind.

Much has been said about the heartbreaking things kids wish their teachers knew, but with overcrowded classrooms and a focus on standardized testing, thinly-stretched teachers don’t have the resources or the time to monitor the emotional well-being of each and every student. And yet, the correlation between emotional well-being and academic performance is well documented. Kids who feel happy and safe tend to perform better than kids who don’t. Schools emphasize academic standards; emotions count too, right?

Local 4th grade teacher Gina Greco has been thinking about the emotion problem for years. So much so, that Greco, a 16-year veteran of the Auburn School District, eventually came up with an idea for a website that would allow students to safely and privately register their feelings with teachers.

“Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s really important to support students academically, socially, and emotionally,” says Greco. “An online screener seemed like a natural way to quickly and efficiently check a student’s emotional health and well-being.”

Such a website would take the emotional pulse of a classroom, providing teachers with actionable data that could be used to identify those in need of intervention or extra support. Greco didn’t have all the details worked out but she knew a tool like this could change lives. Emotions Count was born.

Green River Students Rise To The Challenge

Greco had an idea for a product, but like most people, she didn’t have the technical know-how to transform that idea into a piece of working software. To make her dream a reality, she teamed up with students in Green River College’s bachelor’s in software development, a four-year degree offering that teaches web and mobile development through project-based learning.

When Greco pitched her idea for Emotions Count in a recent session of IT 355: Agile Development Methods, four Green River students including Satinder Kaur, Jami Schwarzwalder, Benjamin Arnold, and Joshua Hawks jumped at the chance to work on the project.

“Rarely do we ask how students feel,” reflects Schwarzwalder, a youth services librarian by day and Green River student by night. “It’s been shown that if a student’s physical and emotional needs are not being met or they do not feel safe, then students are unable to fulfill their highest potential. I saw Emotions Count as an important tool that could help teachers gauge the emotional states of students to address problems and create more supportive learning environments.”

Agile Scrum Trims Project Bloat

During a kickoff meeting with her new development team, Greco described her vision for Emotions Count. After gathering her requirements for the website, the team translated them into a prioritized backlog of technical features, divvied out tasks, and started coding.

Their efforts were also guided by Agile Scrum, a set of principles and practices that help teams deliver products in short cycles, enabling fast feedback, continual improvement, and rapid adaptation to change. In two weeks’ time, 
Kaur, Schwarzwalder, Arnold, and Hawks managed to produce a minimum viable product — a barebones piece of working software that Greco could test and offer feedback on.

“Using an Agile Scrum mindset, our team selected features to focus on, then worked together to implement them over a two-week period called a sprint,” says Schwarzwalder. “Open communication was crucial, so our team checked in every day to share what we had done, where we were stuck, and what we were planning to work on next. We focused on being flexible and delivering value to our client.”

“At the end of our first sprint, we presented a working skeleton of Emotions Count to Mrs. Greco,” adds Arnold. “We gathered her feedback and adapted to her needs, creating only what was specifically requested and nothing more. We repeated this over and over for the duration of the course. This iterative process trimmed the fat and bloat of project design and management, and ensured the client got exactly what she asked for.”

At the conclusion of IT 355 eight weeks later, the team presented a fully functional version of Emotions Count to Green River faculty and staff, student peers, and visiting teachers from the Auburn School District, Trina Johnson and Megan Orr. Demoing the product in a public forum not only provided team members with an opportunity to practice their presentation skills; it also helped Greco gather even more feedback to guide future development efforts.

The Magic Of The Web

Like all great products, the premise of Emotions Count makes perfect sense, leaving anyone who’s used it wondering why no one has thought of it before. It doesn’t force students to grapple clumsily with putting their feelings into words. Rather, it delivers a handful of short prompts on a screen — “Do you feel included at recess?” “Do you have a grown-up at home to talk to?” “Do you ever feel bullied?” — and invites students to respond using simple emoticons.

Behind the scenes, the website provides a secure teacher dashboard that instantly collects the results and color-codes those students who, based on their responses, may be at risk or in need of an intervention. A real-time data set in just a few clicks — behold the magic of the web.

“The data that Emotions Count collects can help teachers, counselors, and parents create individualized systems of ongoing support to ensure that a student’s emotional needs are being met,” says Greco. “This cumulative effort recognizes that emotional health counts and forever plays an integral part in one’s health and happiness.”

Developing Emotions Count not only resulted in a happy client. It also presented a memorable learning opportunity for Kaur, Schwarzwalder, Arnold, and Hawks, who were uniformly impressed with Greco’s passion for education and her deep knowledge of the public school system.

“This was definitely a meaningful project,” says Hawks. “It was great to meet a teacher who really wants to make a difference, even if that means starting something herself to make change happen.”

“Working with Gina was a pleasure,” adds Schwarzwalder. “She is very passionate about her students, and the problem she wanted to solve is something she has thought about for years. Her excitement for our progress inspired us to give more to the project, knowing that it would impact real lives.”

A Powerful Example of Project-Based Learning

Web development instructor Tina Ostrander, who team-taught IT 355 with agile coach Ron Quartel, was equally pleased with the end result. She sees Emotions Count as a testament to the power of project-based learning.

“I’m extremely proud of all my students, including Satinder, Jami, Benjamin, and Joshua. They built a product that solves a real-world problem for a real-world client, and they did it in just two months, which is no small task. I love this particular course (IT 355) because it teaches students how to work in small teams and communicate effectively with a client. Having Ron Quartel team-teach the course with me was an added bonus. As an experienced software engineer, he was able to provide an industry perspective and offer valuable product feedback to all students.”

The story of Emotions Count proves that college students, when given the chance, can apply their craft to change the world one client at a time. It also demonstrates the win-win nature of project-based learning. In this case, Green River students gained valuable project experience while a teacher received free software that will enhance her ability to serve students.

“It was a pleasure working with the software development program at Green River College,” reflects Greco. “I’m excited to pilot Emotions Count in my classroom this fall. From there, I plan to invite other teachers in the district to begin using it in their classrooms, too.”

Like students in IT 355, Greco’s future looks exceedingly bright.

Emotions count, after all.