SBIR Phase II: Developing a Novel Platform for Teaching Emotional Literacy

Affectifi Inc., Brooklyn NY

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to deliver an engaging, scalable, and effective social emotional learning platform to benefit users, mental health professionals, and K-12 schools. At the heart of this specialized platform lies an innovative model of the emotion system. The model uses systematic coding of emotional episodes, which is translated into training exercises that target specific principles of the emotion system through a specialized engine. By integrating with digital content delivery platforms using patent-pending technology, the platform addresses major shortcomings of existing social emotional learning product offerings. The platform has potential for use in corporate training and social emotional skills certification. The Phase II project will focus on the deep emotion learning platform developed during Phase I to further advance the practice and measurement of social emotional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults, at scale. The use of objectively measurable exercises derived from emotion science principles will enable much higher precision in assessing learner progress than is currently possible. The R&D will focus on the following major tasks: (1) Introducing new collaborative and constructive exercises to further improve user engagement and outcomes using the existing mapping framework. Constructive learning activities are those where something new is produced by the learner (e.g. via open response), rather than chosen from a list of pre-determined options, (2) Creating an internal system for utilizing user-generated content to expand training library, a first-of-its kind for applying a crowd-sourcing solution to the emotional ‘translation’ of narrative. Users would function as a “workforce” that enables large-scale emotion mapping of narrative while improving their own emotion knowledge and skills, and (3) Enhancing institutional analytics dashboards to provide better insights into the change in emotional skills over time at the organizational and group level. Efficacy studies will also be conducted to evaluate the platform’s impact on social emotional skills. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.