Learn more about communication with this collection
How to overcome fear of rejection
How to embrace vulnerability
Why vulnerability is important for personal growth
Step 1: Pretend to teach it to a child
Take out a blank sheet of paper. At the top, write the subject you want to learn. Now write out everything you know about the subject as if you were teaching it to a child or a rubber duck sitting on your desk. You are not teaching to your smart adult friend, but rather a child who has just enough vocabulary and attention span to understand basic concepts and relationships.
162
518 reads
MORE IDEAS ON THIS
The Feynman Learning Technique, Basic Idea
The Feynman Learning Technique is a simple way of approaching anything new you want to learn.
Why use it? Because learning doesn’t happen from skimming through a book or remembering enough to pass a test. Information is learned when you can explain it and use it in a wide vari...
174
1.57K reads
Step 2: Identify gaps in your explanation
Areas where you struggle in Step 1 are the points where you have some gaps in your understanding.
Identifying gaps in your knowledge—where you forget something important, aren’t able to explain it, or simply have trouble thinking of how variables interact—is a critical part of the learning pro...
163
465 reads
The Feynman Learning Technique, Four Steps
- Pretend to teach a concept you want to learn about to a student in the sixth grade.
- Identify gaps in your explanation. Go back to the source material to better understand it.
- Organize and simplify.
- Transmit (optional).
183
858 reads
Step 3. Organize and simplify
Now you have a set of hand-crafted notes containing a simple explanation. Organize them into a narrative that you can tell from beginning to end. Read it out loud. If the explanation sounds confusing at any point, go back to Step 2. Keep iterating until you have a story that you can tell to anyon...
159
442 reads
Step 4: Transmit (optional)
This part is optional, but it’s the logical result of everything you’ve just done. If you really want to be sure of your understanding, run it past someone (ideally someone who knows little of the subject). The ultimate test of your knowledge is your capacity to convey it to another. You can read...
163
371 reads
The Feynman Learning Technique, Final Thoughts
The Feynman Technique is not only a wonderful recipe for learning but also a window into a different way of thinking that allows you to tear ideas apart and reconstruct them from the ground up.
When you’re having a conversation with someone and they start using words or relationships that y...
159
455 reads
Related collections
More like this
Pretend To Teach A Concept
- Take out a blank sheet of paper.
- Write the name of the subject as your heading.
- Then write down everything you know about the subject as if you were teaching it to a child. Try and explain as simply as possible.
Teach it to a child
The best way to learn something is to explain it to someone else, preferably to a child. Or at least map out how you would explain something to a child.
This is known as Richard Feynman’s learning formula.
Action Steps
- Define what you want. What is the final result you are after? Do you want better relationships, financial independence or something else?
- Set a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) goal. Write down 10 things you want to accomplish in th...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving & library
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Personalized recommendations
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates