Learn by teaching

How to retain more of what you learn?

How to tell if you fully understand and comprehend what you have learnt?

This approach is as simple as drastically it refines your learning process. The key idea is simple:

Explain what you have learned to someone who presumably doesn’t know it.

Don’t assume that the listener knows the same as you do. When explaining, you must abstract from your previous knowledge. Fundamental terms and ideas are deciphered and explained in your own words to build a foundation of knowledge, used to explain the issue.

In this process, you are using your own way of expressing yourself and thus the terms are interwoven into your network of knowledge. Stronger connections are forged, more is associated and more remembered.

The false impression of understanding

We tend to learn passively by reading or listening over and over again while being unaware of how to learn. It is like starring at a glass of water and hoping that we somehow drink it.

Instead of rereading what you are trying to learn, try to explain it in your own words. When rereading you are likely to fall for the false impression of understanding something since everything appears coherent to you. Only when using your own language, apart from the resources, by activating the parts you remember, can you learn actively and start to fill the gaps afterwards.

You might be able to reproduce what you listened to or read, but do you really understand what you are repeating? Use your own words to reproduce it and start to build a deeper understanding of the issue.

When formulating your thoughts, they become more tangible and fathomable.

Inside your head they probably make sense.

Uttering alters the perspective and you start to perceive your thoughts differently. What had been a conclusive explanation, now reveals gaps and hesitation.

Know what you don’t know:

Inside our head, we overestimate our understanding. When formulating and imparting a change of perspective reveals our flaws. It can prevent you to fall for the illusion of knowledge. Once formulated we are enabled to see more clearly if we are capable of explaining an issue.

This shift of perspective allows examining our thoughts and explanation more critically.

The act of teaching is a way of introducing an active part to the learning. When explaining something you provide structure, it is very different from memories buzzing inside your mind.

Feedback

Teaching not only enables you to see these gaps and hesitations but by having a sort of audience it provides you with more feedback. The audience rewards you with an additional external perspective, that associates differently and may asks questions.

Allow others and yourself to wonder and ask questions. Thus dig deeper and form thorough comprehension. Underlying principles can be revealed and new points to think about appear.

When applying a new language, we are constantly teaching it to ourself while we try to express our thoughts. Instantly do we see if the right words pop up in our memory and whether the formed messages are comprehended.

Teach it

Learning is a way of improving. We can only improve by noticing mistakes and acting accordingly.

Action must result from passive learning. So, read, understand, teach it and receive feedback that teaches you where to continue the process. Then repeat.

The Internet expands the scale of teaching, by broadcasting to a larger audience. What one had learned over 10 years can be thought within 10 minutes, while reaching tens of thousands of people.

There are two eureka moments, which is a blissful feeling of joy.

The first when you understand something, the second when you can make others to understand it as well.

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”

- Peter Drucker

You don’t have to be a teacher or an expert to teach. You rather become an expert by the sole act of teaching.

You will learn more deeply while preparing to teach to someone.

It makes you accountable for not only your understanding but for others as well. Thereby delve deeper and consider more possible paths of thoughts and question .

Other ways of explaining the same issue are noticed, for example, metaphors are used to embed ideas into a vivid image. The more association involved the better will something stick to your memory.

According to a Harvard research spending only 15 minutes after a learning session on reflecting, boosts the learning effect by 23%.

A reflection is a form of teaching, in which you become the student and the teacher.

Participants who talked to themselves while solving a logic puzzle performed three times better than the non-self-talkers. The act of talking to themselves sharpened their awareness of past events. Put differently, they taught themselves how to solve the puzzle by teaching it to themselves while solving it.

In conclusion

To fully understand we must actively impart the passively absorbed information and create meaning, which concerns several areas of the learning process:

• Active recalling of memories.
• Know what to focus on.
• Quizzing through the audience’s questions.
• Repetition and strengthening of the memories by a shift of perspective.
• Revealing gaps.
• New points and questions to continue learning.