Mood Meter is a tool from Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence that helps students (and everyone else) boost their emotional intelligence (EQ) through developing self-awareness and self-reflection skills. Mood Meter helps students develop the ability to recognize their inner feelings, understand nuances of emotions, and develop a rich emotional vocabulary.
How does Mood Meter work?
Mood Meter is divided along two axes: one for energy and the other for pleasantness. There are four colour-coded quadrants or zones each of which is associated with a particular set of feelings and emotions. The yellow zone is associated with feeling pleasant and energetic and includes feelings ranging from pleased to ecstatic. The blue zone is associated with low energy and low pleasantness and includes feelings ranging from apathetic to feeling hopeless.
Students plot their feelings into one of the quadrants. They simply tap the appropriate color quadrant and select the emotion word associated with the plot. Next, Mood Meter prompts students to reflect and type in few words on why they are feeling that way. Plotted feelings are saved so that students can keep track of their mood change over time.
Next, students are provided with strategies to help with the regulation of their feelings. These include quotes, tips, and images. These strategies are designed to help them transition from one emotional state to the other. Students can also customize their emotional experience by adding their own quotes and images. Finally, students can use Mood Meter reports to explore how they were feeling at given times.
The importance of Mood Meter in learning
Mood Meter helps students become aware of their own feelings as well as those of their peers thus promoting emotions of empathy and understanding. Additionally, the ability to identify inner feelings can help students become more effective in regulating their emotions and in making better decisions, all of which are key to a healthy and well-balanced emotional well- being.
The yellow quadrant is associated with emotions that promote creative thinking, group activities, and problem solving. Students in the red quadrant are more likely to experience emotions that heighten awareness and competitivity. Students in the blue quadrant experience emotions that promote deductive reasoning, critical thinking, and empathy. Students in the green quadrant are likely to experience emotions that boost self-reflection and consensus building.
Teachers can use data from Mood Meter to help differentiate instruction and to design teaching strategies that meet the needs of students from all four quadrants.
