3cisd

3C Institute

Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, 3C Institute, in partnership with WestEd, is examining the impact of Emotion Explorer, a web-based intervention program that uses e-books to promote emotional vocabulary, emotion management skills, and reading in kindergarten through second grade students.

About Emotion Explorer

Emotion Explorer, developed by 3C Institute, is a web-based program that uses engaging storylines to teach students about emotions and engage students in reading. The e-books include skill-building activities and personalized feedback for active learning. Teachers can assign students e-books, track students’ progress, and access lesson plans for classroom activities to reinforce learning.

Students will develop early literacy skills and learn about emotions, including how to label and manage their emotions

Click the Interest Form to Learn More!

Interest Form
Who can participate?
  • Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classrooms (2024-2025 school year)
  • Classrooms must have devices on which, with teacher support, students can individually log in and read through e-books (if teachers only have a few devices, students may rotate the device and take turns)
Benefits
  • There is no cost to participate.
  • Students will build emotion vocabulary, reading skills, and emotion management skills. Learners will practice building knowledge and applied language around emotions through a number of readings and accompanying exercises
  • Participating teachers will receive stipends of up to $500.
  • Participating schools will receive:
    • Free access to Emotion Explorer for 2 years following research completion; and
    • A detailed report of school and grade level progress.

Half of participating teachers (intervention group) will be randomly selected to use Emotion Explorer during the 6-week study period (for 40-min total per week) and half (control group) will continue business as usual; all teachers at participating schools will have access to Emotion Explorer to use as desired after the study period.

    • All teachers will:
      • Participate in a virtual kickoff webinar to review study activities.
      • Complete surveys regarding their students’ reading and emotional literacy before (pre) and after (post) the study period.
      • Collect parent permission forms for students to complete these surveys. All students may participate in the intervention, but surveys will only be completed for students with parental permission.
      • Complete a weekly online log to report activities related to emotional literacy, as well as a final online evaluation survey.
    • The intervention group:
      • Will assign students one e-book per week to complete on a device (about 30-min) and lead one class discussion per e-book (about 10-min) for a total of 40 minutes per week for the intervention.

For more information, contact: The Emotion Explorer Project Team at melillo@3cisd.com

DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

Chief of Research and Learning Content

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Expertise

  • autism
  • early development
  • behavioral measurement
  • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

Selected Publications

  • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
  • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
  • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
  • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
  • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.