Learning

How to Learn Better With The Feynman Technique

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Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who had the reputation of explaining complex concepts in a coherent and simple manner. “The Great Explainer”, as he was called, came up with The Feynman Technique which is a simple four-step process to learn anything better. The Feynman Technique helps you identify gaps in your knowledge while being simple enough to apply universally to any topic you want to learn.

Feynman Technique: Quick Look

What is the Feynman Technique?

Richard Feynman emphasized learning that goes beyond the classroom. He also believed it is easy for you to fool yourself.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

The technique helps you learn better by showing you what you really know and don’t.

The Feynman Technique can be summarized in the following four steps:

1. Choose a concept to learn
2. Write the concept down like you would explain it to a child
3. Identify the gaps and understand the concepts better
4. Review and Simplify

The Feynman Technique almost internalizes Active Reading and Elaboration which involves actively engaging with the study material. Let’s look at each of the steps in detail with an example.

1. Choose A Concept to Learn

Decide on a topic that you want to learn or don’t understand well.

The technique involves simplifying what you learn so that you can explain it to a child. However, the technique is just as effective when you are learning complex subjects unrelated to each other. These could include math, Machine Learning, programming, Web Development, Psychology, etc.

2. Write The Concept Down In Simple Language

This is the crux of the Feynman Technique and what makes it so effective. Instead of using all the jargon, you explain what you know like you were explaining it to a child. At times we tend to hide behind the jargon which does not always help us realize that we don’t understand something well. Using simple language helps you know exactly where you need to focus to better understand what you are learning. In this step, you write everything you can think of in a coherent and simple way.

Another way, instead of writing down what you know, is to explain it verbally to someone else. This can also be turned into a conversation to help you learn better. The person you are explaining the concept to can ask you related questions that can help you understand how well you know the topic and also how well you can explain it.

3. Identify The Gaps

As you write about the topic you will start to notice places where you fumble. Once you finish writing down what you know, it is important to go back to your study material to check if you covered everything. You might also notice that you left out some sections or wrote them down wrong. All these things can help you realize where you need to focus more in order to master the topic.

Identifying gaps in this way is the best way to grow and learn a topic. You can refer to your study material to fill in these gaps and learn those sections better. Often it is also possible to stumble on to something that is not mentioned in your study material. If you find that your study material or even subsequent Google searches don’t clearly help you fill in the gaps you identified, you can go to a classmate, your professor, or another experienced person.

Cal Newport talks about “Investing in Academic Disaster Insurance” in his book How To Be A Straight-A Student. This involves marking the sections you don’t understand with a question mark. Your objective is to eliminate all these question marks before your test. Read a summary of How To Be A Straight-A Student here to get actionable tips to learn better.

4. Review and Simplify

It is possible that what you write can be simplified even further. You might still be using some jargon that can be simplified to help you test your knowledge. This technique is iterative and you can build on what you learned previously to get closer to mastering the subject.

In addition to simplifying the language, you can also consider adding related analogies and experiences to learn better. For example, I was trying to get a basic understanding of how steel is case hardened. It was much easier for me to understand how steel hardens in this case by thinking about it like a sponge absorbing carbon to form an outer case. Setting the complicated equations and jargon aside can help you get a better perspective of the actual concept. You can then move on to delve deeper.

Charlie Munger also explained biases in his Psychology of Human Misjudgment speech by putting it in terms of his experiences and analogies. This made it really easy for me to digest what he talked about and also made the speech quite interesting.

Learning Better Using Reflection

Reviewing what you learned after you have learned something from a life experience or in a classroom is called Reflection. Reflection can be a great habit to develop in order to make more sense of what you learned. This involves delving deeper into what you learned, the key ideas, examples, and relating the new knowledge to what you already know.

Reflection is one way to be intellectually curious and it involves several different activities according to the authors of Make it Stick. Reflection involves Retrieval and expressing what you learned in your own words to learn better. Reflection can also help to avoid being trapped by your own expertise and develop a beginner’s mind.

Studying the Benefits of Reflection

The authors of Make it Stick conducted a study to see how expressing what you learned in your own words helps you learn better. Some of the students involved in the study learned by expressing what they had learned in their own words during the semester. The study found that these students scored approximately half a letter grade higher than the other students. Writing what you learned recently in your own words, as the Feynman Technique suggests, helps you improve learning.

Using other techniques like Spaced Repetition, Retrieval Practice, Interleaved Practice, Elaboration, and Active Reading along with the Feynman Technique can help you remember what you learned better and recall information when needed.

Michael Scott’s advice to Dwight was: “Keep it Simple Stupid, K-I-S-S”. That is probably the best way to summarize the Feynman Technique.

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