L·07
Learning & Memory
Teach It to Someone Slower
Preparing to teach — and actually explaining aloud to a novice — produces better understanding than preparing for a test.
- Evidence
- solid
- Topic
- Learning
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
solidHow strong is the evidence?
Good evidence behind it, but fewer people have checked it independently.
- Fiorella & Mayer, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 2013
- the protégé effect
Why it works
Teaching exposes exactly the joints you had glossed over. You cannot bluff a question from someone who does not know the jargon.
What to do about it
- Write the explanation for a smart fifteen-year-old. No jargon allowed; where you reach for jargon, that's the gap.
- Explain aloud, not in your head. The mouth catches what the mind waves through.
- Keep the explanations. They become your revision material.
Where people go wrong
Explaining to someone who already knows — they fill your gaps in silently and you never see them.
Read next
- Ask Why It's TrueAsking “why would that be the case?” while reading beats any amount of summarising.solid
- Retrieval Beats ReviewTrying to recall something strengthens memory far more than reading it again. Rereading mostly builds confidence.proven
- SpacingThe same total study time, spread out, produces far more durable memory than massed together.proven
- InterleavingMixing problem types during practice feels worse and performs better than doing them in blocks.proven