Applying The Feynman Technique: The Way to Learn Through Teaching
Richard Feynman was a Nobel prizing winning physicist that was highly regarded for his work in quantum mechanics and his public popularisation for the study of physics. Feynman pioneered the field of quantum electrodynamics, influencing the fields of nanotechnology, quantum computing and particle physics. Bill Gates once remarked he was one of the “greatest teachers I never had”.
Unlike many scientists who mostly use writing as the medium in which to communicate their ideas, Feynman was highly verbal, and communicated a lot of his ideas through his talks and lectures. His focus on oral communication is the basis for the Feynman technique. relied heavily on verbal channels, such as talks.
The Feynman technique is is a way to retain crucial information and/or knowledge by teaching it using simple terms to another person. Richard Feynman explained that if one cannot describe an idea in simple terms, then they do not really understand it. The ability to use this technique to explain a topic can prove one’s understanding of it.
“Without using the new word which you have just learned, try to rephrase what you have just learned in your own language.”
- Richard Feynman
Here’s the four steps on how to apply it:
- Choose a concept you want to learn about
- Pretend you are teaching it to a child (teach it as if you are a teaching a five year old)
- Identify gaps in your explanation; Go back to the source material, to fill in gaps and gain a better grasp of understanding.
- Review and simplify (optional)
Richard Feynman lecture on knowing versus understanding in science
Teaching it to a child
We often overcomplicate a subject through the vocabulary and jargon.
Let’s take maths. Taking a random equation from a maths textbook:
If one was given this equation without any prior knowledge of functions, this might look confusing. To an average five year old, this might not make much sense.
However, if we break this down through the components needed to understand what is occurring here — functions, primitives and integrals, we would be able to piece together what is happening. Functions, primitives and integrals themselves are jargon — so one would need to break it down even further as necessary to understand the basic concept of what is occurring and the relationship between each of them as represented here.
In the above, for example, we could first break down what a function, f(x), is. A function, f(x) represents a relation of a series of inputs to a set of possible outputs where each input is related to exactly one output. We can similarly follow this breaking down of concepts of a primitive. Then try simplify even further to how they are connected as a topic and piece together the understanding of what the equation means.
When we write out an idea from start to finish in simple language, we force ourselves to understand the concept at a deeper level.
Review
When we encounter a gap in our knowledge — where we forget something important, or are not able to explain a concept simply — we can return to learn. In the above example, if we do not know a primitive is or we do not know what the ∫ (integral sign) is we can study it. We can figure out why we are stuck, go back to a source material and re-learn until we can achieve explaining in basic terms.
Organise and simplify
Once we have understood our knowledge gaps and we have learned the topical information on what we were previously unable to explain, we can review to see that it is in basic language and not in jargon. We can look to organise our notes, our learnings and simplify as necessary. Through review, we can ensure that we truly understand a subject and have not just defaulted to our brain’s lazy zombies.
We can then try teach to someone else
Studies have shown that when we teach others — we assign some responsibility to ourselves and we learn the material better ( the protege effect). We also connect with the material more through the effects of spaced repetition.
The Feynman technique shows intelligence can be nurtured through growth. It also offers a window into thinking about ideas, tearing them apart and reconstructing them from their basics.
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