Know How You Can Learn Anything Effectively

If you are seeking a way to enhance your learning abilities and make you smarter, here’s the best one for you – the Feynman technique. Devised by Richard Feynman – a Nobel Prize-winning physicist – the technique has been acclaimed as the most reliable one to improve learning. The most important reason for the success of the technique is that it helps one to understand the difference between knowing the name of something and actually understanding what it is. Feynman was never content in just knowing the name of something because he wanted to understand it at its deepest level. He always reckoned that everyone has the capability of learning something new with enough effort. As long as you keep questioning why and why, it keeps on continuing to take you to a deeper level of understanding.

Why Implement This Technique?

• The Feynman technique helps turn the information into easily accessible knowledge.
• This technique can be used to learn any skill, subject, topic or concept in any field. So, this can be applied for learning anything.
• When this technique is used for learning, the knowledge grows, ideas evolve and inspire one to learn the critical fundamentals of the topic.
• The most interesting thing about the Feynman technique is that it is the simplest way to approach anything new you want to learn and understand.
• This technique conveys information using simple language and concise thoughts.
• Besides a wonderful recipe for learning, the Feynman technique is a gateway to broadening the different ways of thinking and thus allows you to reconstruct the ideas by breaking them down. So, the technique is designed to help you enhance your understanding of the subject or learn a new one and prepare for the exam.
• If you are a JEE or NEET aspirant and you want to remember things just to pass a test, it doesn’t reflect learning. Believe that you learn only when you are capable of explaining what you are studying and can apply or use them in a variety of situations. This technique helps you to do so.

The Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique is a strategy and mental model to learn new skills and remember things and commit them to long term memory. It’s the most powerful technique to understand, learn, and retain difficult concepts. Any gap in understanding the topic can be filled by this technique and thus make your understanding deeper. The steps of the Feynman technique are given below.

Step 1: Select A Topic And Study

Select A New Topic

• The basic step is to identify and pen down what you don’t know about a topic or select a new topic.

• Study the topic thoroughly.

• Write everything in the simplest form you studied assuming that you are teaching it to a child or a person who doesn’t know anything about the topic.

• Add information to the sheet as you learn more.

• Once you realise that you have understood the topic, move to the next step.

Step 2: Explain The Concept/Topic

Explain The Topic

• Explain the topic to a layman who doesn’t know anything related to the topic or a 12-year old child.

• If you don’t find a layman or a 12-year-old child to teach then you can imagine that you are teaching and write down the explanation.

• Start explaining the topic with their level of understanding, using simple language.

• If you start using jargon, it means there is a gap in your understanding because jargon is used to hide or mask the lack of understanding. So, avoid the use of jargon.

• If you are unable to define the words or subjective terms you are using, this means you don’t actually know the concept.

When you explain the topic to someone who is not familiar with the topic or write down your explanation from beginning to the end in the simplest form, you understand the topic at a deeper level, the connections between the concepts or ideas and simplify relationships.

Step 3: Identify the Gap In Your Understanding

Identify The Gaps In Your Understanding

This is the step where actual learning begins.

• Once you are done with step 2, identify the gaps in your understanding when you explained the concept -- what you were missing, what you didn’t know or any question that came to your mind.

• You can identify the gap easily as they were the points where you struggled during explaining the topic, forgot important points, or were unable to explain in a simpler way.

• Readout topics loudly as stumbles may indicate incomplete thoughts.

• Highlight or note down the knowledge gaps you identify, it will help you when you collect and reorganise your notes into a cohesive story.

Step 4: Fill The Gap – Simplify And Organise

Fill The Gap

This is the step where you actually increase your knowledge.

• As you have now identified the gaps in your learning, go back to the study material.

• Study those topics you are weak in, find answers to your questions and missing information, and try to simplify the points where you were unable to explain.

• The purpose is to make the concept simple enough to understand easily because when you understand it easily, you will be more comfortable diving deep.

• Keep studying until you realise you can explain the topic in a simple way.

• Add new information and simplifications to your notes.

• Reorganise the information – Simple terms can easily be combined or rearranged to communicate your point.

If you can explain the topic in multiple ways using simple words and sentences, it means you have understood the topic well.

Step 5: Repeat the Cycle From Step 2.

Repeat The Cycle

Explain the topic again or assume that you are explaining it to someone and write your explanation in your notebook. Repeat the cycle until you realize you have command on the topic.