Introduction to the Feynman Technique
The Feynman Technique is a powerful method for learning and understanding complex concepts by teaching them to someone else, as if you were explaining it to a beginner.
Developed by physicist Richard Feynman, renowned for his deep comprehension of complex subjects and ability to simplify them, this technique helps you master topics by breaking them down into simple terms.
The technique involves four key steps:
Concept
Knowledge acquisition and initial absorption. Choose a topic you want to understand and study.
Teach
Explain to others what you have learnt in your own words.
Use simple language and analogies to explain it thoroughly.
Imagine there is a kid who is like 8-year-old and he/she just has the right vocabulary to understand basic concepts and notions, to make your explanations easy to understand, you have to simplify your language.
If you find any gaps in your understanding or if you struggle to explain certain parts, go back to your materials and study them again.
Then, try explaining the concept once more.
Review
Evaluate your teaching by others or yourself, and review what is not good.
In the “Teach” step, you will inevitably get stuck, forget important points, fail to explain, or fail to connect important concepts.
This feedback is quite valuable because you have identified the edge of your knowledge. Knowing the boundaries of your abilities is also an ability, and you’ve just identified one!
This is where the actual learning begins.
Now go back to the source and re-learn until you can explain the concept in basic terms.
Simplify
Simplify it further if necessary. The goal is to break down the concept into its simplest form without losing the essence of it.
By following these steps, you solidify your understanding of the topic, uncover areas that need further study, and reinforce your knowledge through the act of teaching.
Why Use the Feynman Technique?
In essence, Feynman learning has changed the traditional “input” learning method into an “input + absorb + output”,
this is the whole learning process. This can also be interpreted to the concepts of passive and active learning.
Passive learning typically involves receiving information without actively engaging with it, such as listening to a lecture or reading a textbook. Active learning, on the other hand, involves engaging with the material through activities like problem-solving, discussion, or teaching others.
Summary
The ultimate way to detect knowledge is if you can afford to convey it to another person.
Using the Feynman Learning Method, it takes a shorter amount of time to gain a deeper understanding of a point, and it is memorized and difficult to forget.
This is likely one of the key reasons Richard Feynman was so successful in mastering and communicating complex subjects.
