Have you ever wondered the emotional expressions of students? Me too, which is why the Facial Action Coding System can help solve this problem. It compares everything to a "neutral" face, so you can see if you're one hundred percent happy, one hundred percent sad, etc. Each emotion will be distributed in the results of the test. Dr. Paul Eckman being the creator.

It can be used as an emotion indicator on students in a classroom. Dr. Paul Eckman has classified the tool to only six basic emotions, which he says,"Happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and sadnessand then associated each with characteristic movements of the facial muscles." For example, he noticed that when people raised their eyebrows they became "surprised." Or if you tighten your lips, you show "anger." He sees signs of emotion with each expression the face makes.

Video imagery is even being used to spot emotions in pictures or paintings. The pictures being able to describe the faces of the children. Dr. Huang states that,"The facial expressions for each emotion are universal." So even though many kids have different emotional faces, each student is making the same expression. The software can even see mixed emotions, just like in "Mona Lisa."

We make the same calculations every day. For example, if you were a teacher looking at your students, you could most likely tell how someone was feeling by the look on their face. Dr. Huang says,"Artists such as da Vinci studied human anatomy to help them paint facial muscles precisely enough to convey specific emotions." So da Vinci used an altered version of this way back when, but was mostly mental capabilities. The value of reading the students emotions, could become very helpful in seeing if a student is having trouble in class or with friends.

Muscle differences can even indicate a false emotion! The author says,"the zygomatic major (muscles that begin at your cheek bones) lift the corners of your mouth, and in a false smile the mouth is stretched sideways using the zygomatic major and a different muscle, the risorius." So if you catch one of your students smiling sideways at you, then you know they're treating you to a fake smile. Faces don't lie... if you notice a student false smiling then you may find that they are lying. Try not to use false smiles because you might get caught.

This technology is useful to sensing the emotions of the students in a classroom. If someone is having trouble with classwork, then this could help to determine the problem and find a fix. The video imagery is useful in finding emotion in old pictures from the past. Also, being able to check if someone is using a fake smile is quite handy in terms of the truth. All in all, the Facial Action Coding System is a handy tool that helps sense the students emotions.