The Feynman Technique – A Tool For Effective Learning
The surest way to know whether you have learnt any concept well or not is by explaining it simply. In other words, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. This is the core idea behind the Feynman Technique.
The Feynman Technique is named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. Richard Feynman was not only a brilliant scientist but was also called “The Great Explainer” for his ability to convey complex ideas in simple and easy way.
For example, this is how he described atoms
all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.
Feynman Technique is actually a three point process after you have made up your mind about learning about some topic. It involves following three points:
Try to explain it to a child.
After you have learnt the concept and you are confident that you have developed an understanding, try to teach it to a child. Why? Because, for explaining to the child, you have to use easy language and you can explain anything in easy language only when you truly understand it.
If you can’t find a child to teach, try to teach it to anybody. It could be anybody, your friends, parents, colleagues or even strangers. If you can’t find anybody, try to write down what you have learnt on a piece of paper.
But try to write it down in an easy language. Don’t use any of the fancy words that you just encountered while learning the concept. While explaining, try to be aware about whether you are able to explain easily or not. Try to be honest here. If you are not able to explain effectively, don’t worry. This is normal.
Understanding anything is iterative process (mastered through repetition). No one succeeds in first attempt. What is important is that you are honest about the limits of your understanding of the concept that you are trying to learn.
Fill the gaps in your understanding.
While applying the first step, you must have encountered some gaps in your learning. When you were explaining the concepts to others, there must be some queries from your friends or colleagues that you couldn’t answer properly. Or you must have noticed that you were relatively uncomfortable while writing about some aspects of the concepts.
Try to fill these gaps in your understanding by referring back to your source material. Go back to your source material and revise the concepts. You will notice that when you reading for the first time, you were simply reading for learning but this time you are reading for solving a problem.
Now that you are reading about filling the gaps in your understanding, the topics that you’ll revisit this time will be recorded in your memory more vividly.
Remove the complex parts and make it more simple.
Now that you have revisited your source material and have developed a deep understanding about the concepts, once again try to explain it to somebody, preferably a child with one little improvement over last time.
Try to make it more simple. Try to explain the concept as a story. Organize it. Give it a flow. Even better, invent analogies and comparisons (analogy is a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification).
People should not think that they are learning a concept from you, they should think that you are listening a story from you. Make listening about the concept from you an effortless activity. If you are able to do this, it means that you truly understood that concept.
Now that we have learnt about Feynman Technique, why does it work? Give it a thought.
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