We’ve all been there – reading the same paragraph again and again. Even by the third time reading we still can’t reach the end without our thoughts trailing off. It’s infuriating. It’s a waste of our time.
And have you been here? Watching a video online and then immediately forgetting the useful stuff you were supposed to have learned? Yup, I’ve been there too.
Thankfully, I can tell you that there is a way to severely reduce the number of times the above happens. I now watch videos and can implement what I’ve learned. I now read books and retain the knowledge. I now learn productively. And it’s all so simple. Really!
The best way to learn is to teach
Frank Oppenheimer
The best way to learn is to teach. That’s the trick. That’s what’s going to engage you in what you are learning. That’s what’s going to help you remember important details and make them stick. In a nutshell – it’s going to seriously level up your learning game.
We humans have known about this for a long time:
While we teach, we learn
Seneca, Roman Philosopher
Way back in Roman times, we were aware of the benefits of teaching to learn. So let’s listen to our elders, get on board, and learn how to learn.
Interestingly, this technique is also referenced as The Protege effect.
How does teaching help you learn?
- Teaching others forces us to recall what we are learning
- We pay more attention to the material
- Students ask questions
A small note: I use the term ‘students’ in this post, but a student could be anyone: a friend, your child, a neighbor, a poor someone you pass on the street, or indeed it could actually be a lecture hall full of students. The benefits of this technique apply no matter who you have to teach.
Let’s look at these points in more detail:
Teaching others forces us to recall what we are learning
Recalling information is the most important tool to utilize when we are committing information to our long-term memory. Our brains have a bad habit of letting go of information despite our great desire to hold onto it. Sometimes it’s the things we want to memorize the most that we appear to forget the quickest.
The trick to remembering anything is to bring what we want to memorize back to the forefront of our minds just as we are about to forget it. I liken the act of memorizing to painting a wall with thin emulsion paint. We slap on the first coat of paint and the result is patchy and faint – there are holes in the new color. Then, after waiting for the paint to dry, the second coat provides a better idea of the color we are going for, and so on and so forth for subsequent coats. In the end, if we apply enough coats then we have a finished wall – a wall of solid color. A clear image. A clear memory. We can extend the analogy further: the color may fade slightly over time, become dirty or marked – the true color isn’t showing through anymore – just like our memories may fade. A fresh lick of paint brings the wall back to its former glory. The memory is refreshed.
While teaching what we have learned, we are recalling the information – painting the second coat.
An app I use to aid in memorization is Anki. Anki tries, and succeeds, in harnessing the power of recall. Anki works like so: we create, or download, flashcards and then start a learning session. The cards are displayed one at a time, we try and answer the question and then we choose how well we remembered the card’s content: was it hard, easy, etc. Anki will then file the card away and only show us it again when we are likely to be on the verge of forgetting the information.
We pay more attention to the subject
By keeping in mind that we will be teaching someone else, we engage our brains more in the subject at hand.
Imagine: standing up in front of our intended audience with the intention of imparting our newfound knowledge. Then realizing that we don’t have a grasp on what we were supposed to have learned. Disaster! Can you feel the panic rising? The sweat forming. Can you feel the awkwardness as you squirm and try to recall that nugget of information? Can you see the pairs of eyes looking at you expectantly?
The mere thought of teaching someone else keeps us focused on the task at hand – not only by wanting to avoid the above situation but also by imagining ourselves saying the words out loud; by imagining how we might change the tone of the author so it sounds more authentic coming from us; by changing the words and ideas slightly so that the topic resonates more with our students. We imagine how to captivate our audience, and in turn, ourselves. All of this helps to activate more of our grey matter and aids us in achieving a firmer grasp of the subject.
An example from my own life: I was reading a parenting book while waiting on my firstborn to be done already and be born – I couldn’t wait to meet him. I firmly held the thought in my mind that I would share whatever I learned from the book with my partner so that, together, we would raise a happy child. As I read through the chapters, I actively thought what will she ask if I tell her about this? and how can I relate this story more to her life?. By answering these questions as I read, I was coming at the subject with improved focus and a stronger desire to understand each and every word. The learning became less about just reading a book – because that’s what I should be doing – and more about interpreting the words to gain complete knowledge.
Students ask questions
Questions are great, both for the student asking and the teacher answering. This is true for good and bad questions. A bad question can highlight to us, as the teacher, that we didn’t explain something well, or that the student was bored by our teaching and not listening. Either way, we need to adapt how we present the information. We need to look at the subject again with new eyes so we can find a way to impart that knowledge to our students. In turn, this will help us gain a greater understanding of the subject.
A good question is of equal use – it may make us think of something in a way we had not before, or it might even force us to go back and study more so we can answer the question fully. We can be guilty of tricking ourselves into believing we know a subject, but never fully testing ourselves on the bits we find tricky. A question from a student can cut right through our pretense and expose to us our lack of understanding. If we had chosen not to teach, and to avoid questions, then we would be missing out on this extra insight, this view of the subject from other eyes.
Having students ask questions does of course mean you need to actually teach/share your new knowledge with someone. If that’s not your jam, or you physically don’t have time to teach, then there are still ways you can reap some of the benefits. 1. Try to imagine what a student with no knowledge of the subject may ask, really take the time to think about it, and answer them. 2. Google your subject of choice and find a F.A.Q section or similar; answer the questions without looking at the provided answers. But, if you can teach to a live student then please do – the rewards will be greater.
A little reassurance
Maybe the above has all just been nice words to you so far – a quick read on a procrastination excursion – but consider this: you may have heard something along the lines of – we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we see, 30% of what we hear, 50% of what we see and hear, 70% by collaboration and 80% by doing. I will state now that I don’t think this is accurate – the numbers are suspiciously round for a start, and I’ve found numerous versions of this with varying percentages and categories. But! The overall idea is fairly consistent – the passive learning styles of reading, seeing, and hearing are eclipsed by the active style of doing. In our case – teaching. So by utilizing our own personal learning style along with doing/teaching, how can we fail?
By the way – if you are interested then this idea of how we learn is often attributed, rightly or wrongly, back to Edgar Dale.
Tips
Choose a student who learns the same way as you do
A popular theory is that we predominately fall into one of four learning styles, the details of which are out of the scope of this post, but are covered in this post: What are the Learning Styles – Vark Model. For now, all we need to know is that the four types are Visual, Auditory, Reading & Writing, and Kinesthetic.
If you are able to choose your student, then choose one who learns in the same style as you. The best way for us to learn is to use our most prominent learning style, so if our student has the same learning style as us then we will be tailoring our ‘lecture’ to that style. You learn while your student learns and it should all come together just nicely.
Take pride in your student’s learning
We feel good when we teach someone and they ‘get it’ – when we see them have that light-bulb moment. This is probably why a lot of teachers teach. So double down on this feel-good feeling, keep it in mind while you are learning and it will help you focus. Do you want to be the cause of that light-bulb moment? Then you have to learn your stuff first!
Signing off
Iain McClafferty – The Five Year Mortgage
