For my forecasting project, A3, I decided to explore wearable technologies. Specifically, I described a fictional future technology that does not currently exist. It is a mobile mental health application, called SPIRITED MINDS. This application requires the use of a smartwatch device. Its main purpose is to aid the self-regulation process by providing therapeutic activities to restore a relaxed state of mind. As an educator, I am interested in supporting the social emotional learning needs of my students through the use of technology. A future technology such as SPIRITED MINDS has a strong potential to support students in an educational setting.
To learn more, please check out my Google Slides presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BoLoYatMP6ZaJPGOHKAlJh5aX4f1DM954my4eXLXPM4/edit?usp=sharing
Congratulations Ravneet,
I just loved your idea, SPIRITED MINDS, and your presentation, as well. Wearables open a wide field for understanding human behavior, necessities, and clinical conditions. My concern is about algorithms to determine mental status and the potentially misleading in recommending therapeutic activities. For instance, most people looking for applications as CALM or HEADSPACE already have a symptom of sadness or bad mood. In this case, physiological signs are closely linked to emotional status. It is possible to argue that searching for an application of meditation and mindfulness skills consists of selection bias once these subjects recognize some kind of symptoms. As Anne clearly highlighted above, in Education, deal with stress and pressure are part of our daily routine. A correlation between subject signs and academic calendar could help understand if that stress is “physiological” and related to the learning moment or pathological demanding activities and mental health therapies.
Hi Ravneet,
I really like the possibilities that a watch like this offers and I really enjoyed your presentation. One of the questions I have about Spirited Minds is who is responsible for the initial data collection of school aged wearers? The reason why I ask this is because external stressors in the classroom might not present themselves at home, and vice versa. Perhaps the initial data collection, that would sync each user individually to their smart watch would have to be undertaken by a team? In this way, the process almost mirrors the implementation of assistive technology devices. Would their also be measurable goals in place to see if the watches were effective?
I think it makes a lot of sense how Spirited Minds stops the wearer from overthinking negative thoughts. In a way, it almost interrupts/rewires neural pathways. Like some other posters, I am wondering if this might sometimes give the wearer a disadvantage. I think that intuition is based on the body and mind subconsciously remembering past events, and that these memories can both guide and protect individuals. If someone was in a negative situation, and felt intuitively that something was wrong, is it a possibility that Spirited Minds would make it difficult to tell the difference between actual harm and routine negative thoughts?
Jen
I am also optimistic about the idea of Spirited Minds for helping elementary students to self-regulate. Currently, in my school, teachers are expected to build in mindfulness and self-regulation time for everyone. This is not ideal for many reasons. With the Spirited Minds app, the use of mindfulness and self-regulation tools could be individualized and triggered when needed.
I agree with others’ concerns over cost, but I’m also optimistic that technology is becoming more accessible, and will continue to do so.
I also believe that it’s within reason to expect that continuing advancements in the field of wearable technology will allow an app such as this to recognize and respond to emotional states in ways that can help when needed.
Hi Ravneet,
Emotions are indeed the gateway for education.
Emotional intelligence is a very valuable life skill which Spirited Minds could directly teach. Coincidentally, I just had a debate with a psych nurse – who works with mental illness, addiction and psych emergency – this morning on the use of ed-tech to combat mental illness. They were pretty unconvinced that tech could replace the role of human interaction to act as the regulator. They also believe any social group is a micro-cosomn of how an individual will likely act on a larger scale.
I am more optimistic that such a device – like Spirited Minds – could be very useful if it were designed well. I am worried of some inherit biases such a tool might have built into it.
One last thing is you mentioned an implication of “Dependency” with regards to dependency from a smart phone. What about dependency a user might build to the tool. Maybe a user doesn’t focus on their emotional well being since that is the job of Spirited Minds.
Interesting device overall and I can totally see the world moving in that direction. Fitbit and wearable devices are a fine example of that.
Hello Ravneet. Thank you for sharing your brilliant ideas with students’ emotions which is still underestimated for some reason.
I noticed that some of my questions had been discussed already. For example, Greg mentioned about the cost of buying a smartwatch. Do you think it is possible to replace the watch by anything cheaper such as a Fitbit?
Greg also asked, “any idea how activity breaks would happen within the school setting?” It is what I concern as well. If a student feels down in the middle of the class and the software suggests he/she do some push-ups, how will the teacher and the student manage it?
Like Binal, I also curious about why you put social-emotional learning on the opposite side of academic learning. You two had a good discussion about it. I agree with Binal that social-emotional learning should have more weight in education. Binal wondered that children might not be able to learn how to self-regulate by relying on digital devices, which is a great point. I wonder such an app may not be influential enough to motivate students, especially in primary schools where kids are too young to control their emotions, even if they see the suggestions from the app, they may be in an overwhelmingly strong emotion to take any action. As you said, intervention is necessary for that situation. So the data should be shared with the specialists as well.
Overall, it’s a very good presentation with solid references. Thank you so much!
Yi
Hi Ravneet,
Thanks for your glimpse into the future at the potential of wearable devices! Before going into admin my teaching background was mostly in alternate programs, where we always tried to put the social-emotional state of the student foremost; hard to learn anything when emotionally you’re in the cellar or through the roof! I was wondering if you did any research on costs of outfitting students with these devices; is it feasible for a district to purchase and distribute a smart watch to all students, or are you thinking the cost is put on the parents? Would you allow counsellors access to the statistics collected by the device so they have background knowledge on a student before they see them or to intercede if it looks like a student is having trouble coping? I really liked that you encorporated an active aspect into the app as well… any idea how activity breaks would happen within the school setting? I had a bicycle desk at the back of one of my classes (thank you grant money!) and had kids coming in from other classes to pedal away until they were calmed and ready to take on the day’s work.
Again, awesome work! I could see something like this, with support from trained counsellors, being helpful to a number of students…
Hi Greg,
Thanks for bringing some very important points to my attention. During my practicum, I was teaching at an inner city school and I know exactly what you mean when you say that learning can be challenging when students are struggling emotionally due to their unstable home lives. I agree with the idea that becoming overly dependent on an app or wearable is not ideal. An app can really only go so far. It definitely doesn’t have the ability to replace a mental health professional.
In my opinion, given the technology that we currently have available in schools, it would be a challenge for the district to purchase and distribute smartwatches to all students. In some schools, it might even be unfair to put such a cost on the parents. I do feel that allowing counsellors to access stats collected by the device would be an excellent way to monitor students on their case load.
Great ideas, Ravneet! Your presentation and app are well thought out, and you have looked at current apps and taken them a step further. I was curious about the fact that you said social-emotional learning and academic learning to be on “opposite sides of the spectrum” – why so? This would imply that you can’t have success in both simultaneously?
In addition to the questions from Anne, how accurate do you think the app will be in identifying “emotions” themselves? Lots of physiological changes could mean many different things, and what if a sudden burst of excitement results in a nudge from the wearable as well? What I’m trying to say is that this feels a lot like negative reinforcement, and if this happens in response to a positive change, it might not be that great for the person. Secondly, the underlying problems, anxieties, stressors, etc. might not be dealt with if one becomes overly dependent on an app or wearable like this, and one may not learn to regulate their emotions independently. What do you think?
Finally, do you think eventually this can replace a mental health professional? And if not, what if one believes so and does not consult one when they should?
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Binal,
Thank you for your kind words. I try to see social emotional learning and academic learning as one, but I often find myself exploring them separately when engaging in the lesson planning process. I definitely feel that weaving them both into one lesson may help me shift my mindset, but sometimes that can be a challenge for me. Teaching comes with a lot of expectation in terms of content to be covered over the course of a year. I think you can certainly have success in both areas simultaneously, but it can be exhausting, especially in a primary classroom. An app like SPIRITED MINDS could potentially support students with their minor daily social emotional needs. I don’t think that a mental health app could replace the job of a mental health professional. Perhaps a reminder of this should be given to users so that they are aware of it.
I completely sympathize with the pressure of covering content in a given semester or year – and thus, I think the redesigned BC curriculum is moving in the right direction. Despite its flaws currently, the idea of more holistic education and focus on competencies is a step forward to educate young minds to become better citizens. Since I have not taught primary years, I don’t feel qualified to comment but yes, I do agree that both social-emotional well-being and academic learning can happen simultaneously. In fact, academic learning is secondary to social-emotional in that if a child is not mentally in the right headspace, learning is highly unlikely to be meaningful. I think an app like Spirited Minds can help bring awareness to current state of mind, however, I wonder how successful young children will be in regulating their emotions based on such an app?
I like that you’ve considered some of the implications and challenges that come alongside the technology you’re proposing for monitoring and improving mental health via a wearable device and an app. It’s so important to learn how to calm down when you’re too activated, too worried, too stressed, too preoccupied with negative thoughts – but what if we sometimes need to be activated? Would the wearable device be able to tell when it’s a good time to be stressed and a good time to calm down?
Or is it always a good time to calm down?
I read a book about musical and athletic performance years ago in which the author suggested there is an ideal level of activation for performers to be at, and he would coach performers to find their ideal level and teach them how to raise/lower their level of activation before hitting the stage. In this view, sometimes calm is actually bad! Beyond traditional “performance” situations, I think this also applies to creative work. Think of how many people need the stress of a deadline to actually fire up their creativity and get moving on a project.
Or what if you’re in a situation where you should legitimately be feeling unpleasant emotions (say, anger at your boss for making a sexist comment towards you) and the app pops up suggesting some activities to calm down? Is it best to divert your attention towards a “calming” activity in that moment, or should the app let you be angry?
How would Spirited Minds tell the difference between “good” negative emotions and “bad” negative emotions?
Hi Anne,
Thank you for your thought-provoking questions. I think that a calm mind is a rational mind and so in order to make sound decisions, it’s important to be in this state most of the time. I think that even if your boss was doing or saying something that led to the development of unpleasant emotions, it’s still important to try to restore a calm state of mind before dealing with the situation. In my opinion, feeling negative emotions is only hurting you. However, I have overlooked the idea of how this app would distinguish feelings of excitement from feelings of anger. Though the mind isn’t necessarily calm when excited, it’s still a good thing to be excited about things going on in your life. I definitely agree with you that in certain situations, calm is not the ideal state of mind. For instance, if I am going bungee jumping or skydiving, I’m not necessarily trying to achieve a calm state of mind. In regards to stress, I think it varies between individuals. Short-term stress is definitely motivating for some people, but in the same way, it can have a negative effect on others. Some of my colleagues work very well under pressure, but I don’t tend to deliver my best work.
Perhaps the app just needs to let the user set just how stressed they want to be. It’s true that some people work best under pressure, so having an app telling them to calm down when they’re just hitting their stride energetically would be counterproductive – maybe the app could have a “stress quota” for the day that allows the user to choose how many stress hours and how many relax hours they want. The app could even help users find out exactly how many stress hours are ideal for them.
For me personally, I love stress, pressure, deadlines, performance, and challenges, and if I were calm all the time, I’d be miserable! But that doesn’t mean that I don’t need to be calm SOME of the time so I can rebalance and re-energize before I jump back into whatever stressful thing I’m doing at the time. An app reminding me to chill out for at least just part of the day would be helpful, but there would definitely be times I wouldn’t want the app telling me to calm down.