From Nine to Noon, April 9, 2025
Listen to Nathaniel Swain, a former primary teacher turned education academic, who says streaming classes by ability level is not the way to go to lift achievement.
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School Shorts, Season 1, Episode 7, April 7, 2025, with Melissa Chan Green
The Forgetting Curve is a useful tool in understanding how best to try and remember all the learning that goes on at school - or anywhere for that matter!
Nathaniel Swain is a teacher, researcher and coach of great techniques to help children learn. In this episode he shares the importance of regular review instead of cramming for exams.
The discussion also touches on strategies for supporting young learners, the role of cultural context in education, and the need for personalised learning approaches. This episode will be useful for people of all ages who want to remember things!
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Progressively Incorrect, Season 4, Episode 10, November 17, 2024, with Zach Groshell, PhD
This episode is a conversation between me and three amazing educators who are making inroads to bring the science of learning to schools across Australia. Most excitingly, we are all contributing authors to the book, Harnessing the Science of Learning by Nathaniel Swain, who, of course, is on the show today and has been on the show before.
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3AW Melbourne, February 15, 2024, with Ross and Russel
A report has revealed how Australian school kids could improve their “dismal” test performances.
Senior lecturer and director of Academic Programs at La Trobe University, Dr Nathaniel Swan, says there are schools who have changed the way they teach students.
“And you can get better results as a result,” he told Ross and Russel.
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The Age, March 13, 2023, by Lucy Carroll and Adam Carey
In 2023, NAPLAN was moved from May to March, shifted entirely online, and introduced new proficiency standards to provide earlier insights into student learning. These changes raised concerns about student stress and equity. While not commenting directly on NAPLAN, Dr. Nathaniel Swain advocates for evidence-based teaching and a knowledge-rich curriculum, aligning with the goal of using assessments to better support learning.
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Progressively Incorrect, Season 2, Episode 20, January 30, 2023, with Zach Groshell, PhD
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, I chat with Dr. Nathaniel Swain about the work he is doing with teachers and middle leaders to ensure that all students receive instruction that is informed by the science of learning.
This is one of those episodes that is jammed packed full of insights and interesting tidbits, including what Dr. Swain describes as the biological imperative we have as humans to learn from others. Instead of falling for the romance that is having students discover or teach themselves the bulk of the material, Dr. Swain talks about the need for teachers to, well, teach the material, and to teach it explicitly and efficiently using principles and findings from cognitive science. As someone who is thoroughly fascinated with the innovations coming out of international education systems, you will also hear me pick Dr. Swain’s brain about the progress being made in Australia to implement evidence-informed instruction and explicit teaching.
Let's Get Schooled, January 17, 2023, with Emma Gentle
Listen to Nathaniel Swain, with host Emma Gentle, on ‘The Em Powered Podcast’ talk about his professional journey which led him down the path of the Science of Learning and his passion to make learning explicit and accessible for all learners.
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ABC National Radio, December 15, 2022
Is the size of your child's class the optimal size for learning? Are they being given the kind of homework evidence says is useful, if evidence says homework is useful at all?
These are the kinds of questions being asked by a national body set up to make sure Australian schools are using as much evidence-based practice as possible. Their first report is out now.
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SBS News, October 18, 2022
Listen to Nathaniel Swain, a former primary teacher turned education academic, who says students are coming to a ‘bottle-neck’ with their learning and we need to understand why this is the case.
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