When Lindy Osborne really needs to study she meets up with her friends for a coffee.
The part-time PhD student and full-time academic at Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) School of Design may sound like the master of procrastination, but her innovative study group, Shut Up & Write! Brisbane, is fast being adopted as a viable alternative to "rigid learning".
Unlike classic study or writing groups, Shut Up & Write! embraces technology, social media and cross-disciplinary pollination between students at varying stages of their studies and from various faculties within the university, meeting up in a cafe, talking, collaborating and writing.
"I've researched a lot about informal learning environments and incidental learning spaces as part of my PhD and they can be much more interesting and exciting for learning - I think that's part of Shut Up & Write's! success," Ms Osborne said.
"It's cultural conditioning that we need quiet to focus and learn, but it's not always the case.
"Classroom learning environments are changing rapidly, but approaches to academia have stayed largely the same. Groups like this are really changing the way we do things."
The group use the famous 'pomodoro technique' which is simple, yet effective, Ms Osborne says - set a clock, preferably one shaped like a tomato, for 25 minutes, write uninterrupted until the time is up, chat and drink coffee for five to ten minutes, repeat.
"When you explain it like that people think 'how much can you possibly get done in 25 minutes?' but it's surprising just how much you can write," she said.
"There's something about bouncing ideas off each other and then when all you can hear is the keys on everyone else's keyboards it is really motivating to write more."
Ms Osborne, who runs the group with fellow academic Glenda Caldwell and Dr Ben Kraal, said the idea had originally come from a tweet by an RMIT colleague about Shut Up & Write groups formed by creative writers in San Francisco. Ms Osborne suggested they tailor the idea to a scholarly setting at QUT and the rest is history.
Ms Osborne and Ms Caldwell, along with their RMIT colleague Dr Inger Mewburn, who tweets and blogs as The Thesis Whisperer, have since delivered a paper at a conference, penned a book chapter and compiled research on the study technique which is quickly gaining popularity in academic circles, both on and offline.
"The idea has really sprouted and we have been contacted by different universities looking to start something similar," she said.
"It really is breaking new ground in how academic studies can be done, and should be done.
"For us, not only is it a much more interesting way to do research, but it offers a real exchange of ideas and a chance to collaborate with people working in areas that you may not usually have access to and that can only be a good thing for research and higher learning."
Shut Up & Write! Brisbane meets every Tuesday and Wednesday from 3-4.30pm and on Friday from 10-11.30am at Artisans Cafe at the Gardens Point campus. They are looking for new members. Find them at the table with the big red tomato or follow the hashtag #SUaWBne on twitter.
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Media contact: Alita Pashley, QUT media officer, 07 3138 1841 or alita.pashley@qut.edu.au
