I’ve written before about how to learn faster. It’s still great advice. And, again, learning doesn’t stop when you get handed a diploma. If you’re reading this, you probably learning something new every year, if not every month or every week. So, learning how to learn faster can reap tremendous rewards.
Recently, I stumbled onto Scott H. Young, who makes his living teaching people how to learn faster. His site and newsletter are packed with great information, and goes into depth about some of the things I’ve written about, like explaining a concept to ensure you remember it. He calls it the Feynman Technique:
If you need help really drilling down and getting better at learning faster, Scott offers a ton of free, great material. Check out his site here.
.
Pingback: The Hardest Thing About Learning | The Blog of A.J. Kessler
Why not call it the “explaining an idea to yourself to see if you understood it” technique? I mean, what’s it got to do with Feynman other than he won a Nobel, and Scott H Young knows an anecdote about him?
You’re right: “the explaining an idea to yourself to see if you understood it technique” is much catchier 🙂
Sarcastic emoticons and replies notwithstanding, I don’t see what’s being improved by the ‘Feynmanization’ of the ‘learn by teaching’ approach, even when adding you as the teacher as well as the teachee. I do not see what’s so Feynman about it either.
Take the opening of RF’s CalTech lectures. RF doesn’t try to explain an atom to you, nor get you to explain it to yourself. He puts you inside one. You experience it. The most abstract subject of science becomes something comprehensible and almost mundane (and fascinating). It would be interesting to explore the real Feynman technique to figuring things out, because he had the knack and the Swedish medallion to prove it.
Check out Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! He discusses some of his learning techniques, which rely heavily on deeply understanding how a concept works, not just being able to provide correct answers. I haven’t read the book in a few years, but I believe he advises that if you can’t succinctly explain how something works, you don’t sufficiently understand it. I imagine this is where Mr. Young pulled the phrase from.
I just opened ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!’ to ‘A different kind of toolbox’ in part 2. I thought that must be it. Lo and behold, what do I see:
“I bet there isn’t a single theorem that you can tell me–what the assumptions are and what the theorem is in terms I can understand–where I can’t tell you right away whether it’s true or false.”
That’s it!
What’s really interesting is there is a ‘real’ Feynman technique there! It’s not merely explaining something to yourself, it’s actually creating a mental image of sorts. Wow! This is actual fantastic as a technique, I’m grateful you pointed me to the book!
Well, that is essentially what Scott Young explains in the video. You explain it to yourself by drawing out how something works. You can’t do that without an accurate mental image of how the concept works. And, if you don’t have that accurate mental image, it will become immediately obvious when you try to draw it out.
Glad I could help. The whole book is great, btw. Highly recommended.