Feynman Technique
August 05, 2020
Here is my understanding of the Feynman technique and how I plan to use it to help learn new topics.
The Feynman technique focuses on two types of knowledge: knowing the name of something vs. understanding something as the 4 steps are:
1. 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 you want to understand as if you were teaching it to a child.
The idea is to write out everything you know and understand about the idea using the simplest terms possible.
The places where this is easy is where you have a great understanding of the topic, however, the areas where you struggle with this are typically where you have a gap in your understanding.
My Plan: Use a paper notebook
2. Review
Now that you know where you got stuck, go back to the source material and re-learn it until you can explain it in basic terms. Only when you can explain your understanding without jargon and in simple terms can you demonstrate your understanding. This is the work required to learn, and skipping it leads to the illusion of knowledge.
Arguably the most important step, after identifying gaps in your knowledge it is imperative to go back to the source material and relearn it until you can explain the idea in simple terms.
My Plan: Review source material, blog posts, documentation, videos, etc.
3. Organize and Simplify
Now you have a set of hand-crafted notes. Review them to make sure you didn’t mistakenly borrow any of the jargon from the source material. Organize them into a simple narrative that you can tell. Read it out loud. If the explanation isn’t simple or sounds confusing, that’s a good indication that your understanding in that area still needs some work.
After creating the hand-written notes, summarize them.
My Plan: Write-up the summary in a blog post and host it on this site. This will allow me to keep track of my notes as well as share my learning with others.
4. (Optional): Transmit
If you really want to be sure of your understanding, run it past someone (ideally who knows little of the subject –or find that 12-year-old!). The ultimate test of your knowledge is your capacity to convey it to another.
My Plan: Start creating videos explaining these topics.
Written by Riley Miller, follow me on Twitter 🐦