campusreview . com . au industry & research more and more sophisticated , that this area of research could actually have very practical applications in the classroom that would influence the experience that students were having .
That was something that really interested me . Things like understanding how social contexts or activity would positively impact the way that the brain would be in a position to learn . And so , by using that in the classroom , that could have a positive impact on the outcomes from your teaching and the students ' experience .
And from those early ideas and other bits of research I looked into things like memory and repetition , and how that works in forming memories that students are going to be able to recall under the pressure of exams . Thinking about the importance of sleep and the role that sleep plays in learning . I came across more things that fit with this idea that this broader research could be very important in the classroom for myself as a teacher .
For whom is this book intended ? Is it mainly for high school or university students ? Is it for teachers , PhD students ? I think the primary audience is high school students and university students who are particularly ambitious about getting the most out of their learning and the study experience . I think they will be the people who particularly benefit from it because it contains strategies that are probably beyond what a lot of students are going to want to pursue to engage with their work .
But those who have really got an academic goal in mind , they want to push themselves . There ' s somewhere they want to go that ' s going to need strong academic performance . I think these are ideas that are set out in the different chapters . There are things that they ' re going to want to look at and decide whether they will engage with it .
I know as a teacher , having the ideas that those students who really want to push themselves , or even students who are just struggling , how do they make that step up to this subject ? How do they make the step up to the next year level ?
There are different things in it , different strategies that we can suggest , like setting a goal . Thinking about the intensity that they ' re working with , thinking about the mindset that they ' re bringing into class , thinking about different study skills . There ' s a bunch of ideas that we could then pass on . So , it ' s about saying ‘ let ' s try a few of these and see what works in your situation ’, ‘ let ’ s see what ' s going to help push you to the next level of your learning ’.
Your new book covers a lot of topics . Could you mention one chapter that stands out for you ? I think for me ever since I did that class with Nagel and started teaching , the parallel between study and other high-performance environments has been really interesting . Part of my background is playing and coaching basketball . It ' s really interesting to see that there ' s evidence to say , ‘ Well , if you want to be an effective learner , these things are worth doing ,’ and the way they parallel other high-performance environments .
One of the things around that is setting goals . I think setting goals has become more and more common in an educational context , whether it be learning goals at the start of a class or individual goals that students are working towards . But it ' s very much something that works in other environments . I think that ' s an important chapter to look at there for students who want to direct their performance .
There ’ s also sleep . As I said , basketball is my sport . The NBA often has real challenges for players because they play one night , they ' ll travel and they may well have to play the next day . Sleep ' s a really important thing .
But the more we ' ve learned about sleep in terms of education , the more important that has been . And when you couple that with the digital distractions of screens and the things that students can be doing till midnight and later , and the fact that that screen involvement can actually delay the onset of sleep , sleep becomes a really important element of the mix for a student who wants to do well .
And that includes things like the role that sleep seems to play in actually consolidating memories . So for a student , for example , in an exam block who is working really hard , if they ' re going to push themselves and only get three or four or five hours sleep a night , they ' re going to work against what they ' re trying to actually come away with in terms of memory consolidation . And now there ' s more evidence that the next day there are challenges to concentration and learning as well .
So sleep , just like in other highperformance environments is very important . And as well as that , then just some of the study aides , the study techniques , that we looked at . For example , the use of practice questions and paralleling that to other high-performance environments .
I look at the fact that when I go down and watch the local NBL team , the Bullets here in Brisbane , training intensity is something that their coach is often talking about . And I think the best way to create some intensity and feedback is actually around asking yourself practice questions through your revision and study time .
And there ' s a growing body of evidence to say that ' s a really effective way to engage with the content . So , those chapters that fit with that theme of saying , you ' ve got to create a high-performance environment for yourself , are something I ' ve found really interesting in this journey through learning more and more about study and how it works .
How did this collaboration to write the book come about ? Did you and Nagel stay in contact over the years , or was it just a case of you attending some of his conferences and then reaching out ? It was a little bit of that . I was obviously very influenced by the course that he taught . And so I went out of my way then to see a couple of his professional development activities . And he has written a number of books which I read to stay in touch with his writing .
Ever since I started teaching , I had this interest in study and how we can best talk to students about study and encourage them to pick up different skills that might work . And it got to a time where I wanted someone with significant background and credibility to have a look over what I had put together .
And so I went to him and asked him about that . And when he had a look at what I put together , it was his suggestion then that maybe this is worth putting into a project and building into a book . And so we worked on that and came up with the format where I had written the chapter and he provides some input .
So it ' s very interesting , I think , from the perspective that he is an academic and comes from a research background . I come from a more practical background . And so the two things look at each of the ideas and suggestions in the book . ■
19