Articles about how we concept ideas, draw pictures and — most importantly — test our ideas in the real world to make sure they work!
Great news!!! Today is an exciting day for the science of dreaming (goal setting, aspiration, passions). We are proud to announce that our latest dream research study has been published in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Child & Youth Care Forum.
Dr Sara Williams shares her thoughts about children’s mental health and well being in picture books with Tiny Owl, an independent children’s book publisher in the UK.
A summary of a research study conducted by the University of Cincinnati to test the efficacy of a Dream Workshop and whether it improved children’s self-confidence as measure of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).
How the hand-drawn cover was conceived and illustrated, including descriptions of the thumbnails. And how this affected title of the book and website.
Student’s using the workbook “Dream It!” had a scientifically proven, evidence-based improvement in optimistic thinking and perseverance (along with improvements in hope, growth-mindset and overall school climate) among elementary school students. Highlights from our most-important study to date, including lots of pictures and graphs.
If you’ve been reading our website, you’ve learned that we spent a great deal of effort learning educational theory, cognitive development and psychological theory, and combining it all with our own life experiences to form a comprehensive, evidence-based process for learning how to dream and turn those dreams into reality. However, one aspect of the book that is not apparent by reading it is all the work we’ve done learning how to work within the bureaucracy of the school system, connecting with community leaders and implementing educational programs.
During the creation of our first book, we spent countless hours researching. And we also ran our own research project. During the way, we ran across a lot of great ideas that got lost, so we thought we should begin collecting the best of the best articles we have read.
We were honored to attend the American Psychological Associations 2018 annual conference to present the results of our study. This is a new analysis of our data that, essentially, says that young students perform better when they are taught the basics of socioemotional skills, like passion and goal setting, first before more academic subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
As with most aspects of a children’s book, vocabulary — or should we say diction? — or should we say word choice? — can become a complex topic, especially if you want to teach them new concepts, like how to dream. Even the word “dream” has two very different meanings. Let’s dive a little deeper into this topic and have some fun along the way.
