Improve your grades with the Feynman Technique

The essence of the Feynman Technique is pretty simple - make sure that you are able to explain ideas and answer questions about them in order to truly learn concepts. This is similar to the idea of rubber duck debugging when coding, even explaining things to yourself can get you over hurdles.

[somnathdash]

I like the Schrodinger's Cat in the back, on your wall.

[lupus]

Another version of the rubber duck idea is simply to leave it and have another go tomorrow. I work in engineering and I am consistently amazed how you can do a piece of work that you think is perfect. Rather than send it off, you leave it until tomorrow. When you review it the next day, you are amazed at how imperfect it is including spelling / grammatical mistakes and even difficult for anyone else to understand what you actually mean. Another example of this is if you are ever tempted to send a flame email - don't do it. By all means compose it but leave sending it until tomorrow. When you review it the next day, it's amazing how stupid it can seem.

[theCodyReeder]

So by not doing geology videos until I feel qualified I’ve really been shooting myself in the foot.

[xIvalicex]

It´s amazing to listen to someone expressing ideas the way you do. Your voice tone is perfect to transmit your message. It is also a great advice to students. When you are able to explain ideas to someone else, it means that you have managed to understand the concept of the topic, which is the basis of knowledge. This is a beautiful video and you are a beautiful human being, thank you.

[mplaw]

You’d make a good teacher for serious students.

[Lucas-ifwt]

Kind of off topic but just wanted to say how beautiful your voice and smile are. You seem really modest for how smart you are, a quality a lot of people with these kind of channels lack in my opinion! Keep on going :)

[vkig]

In my first year undergraduate engineering course, we had a 2-semester materials science subject where, in the first lecture, the lecturer gave us a list of nearly 100 questions, and said any five of those will be on the exam.

He said that the exceptional students would be able to generate the answers all by themselves over the period of two semesters, but most of us would need to form groups and divide up the work between group members. He also said whoever was in which group was up to us to decide.

Four of us formed a group and we each worked on one question each week, and at the end of the week we got together for a "chalk and talk" session where each one of us would teach the other three members about the answer to our question for the week. Sometimes we (individually) couldn't come up with a complete answer by ourselves, and the group would tackle it.

The technique worked - we all did well in that subject.

[kenlogsdon]

I've always said, myself, that if you want to learn something well, learn it and practice it as though you were going to have to teach it.

[randyzeitman]

Boy are you ever right ... all counts.

Don't commit to learning something ... commit to TEACHING it ... that will force double the learning.

A real-world personal example I can offer is that I've recently figured out a very powerful and simple to understand music theory using only your hands - THE (Two-Handed-Easier) Music Theory. No music reading required ... only the ability to count in a particular way, using your two hands if you like.

Details in my own videos. Here I'm just speaking to the Feynman Technique - committing to teach guarantees deep learning.

[bobcrunch]

Look at the physics videos by Leonard Susskind of Cal Tech. He knew Feynman when he first joined the faculty. His lectures on general relativity are understandable to the laity yet useful to advanced physics students. He argued with Hawking and frequently won.

[supersmashsam]

Explaining concepts to your collegues is a really great way of studying in group!
And yeah, I'm pretty sure Feynman didn't come up with this idea. I've heard this idea being associated with Einstein before, but I'm sure even he wasn't the original author of this technique.

[chrisschock]

I’m a Computer Science Student (Plan to study Astronomy as well soon) and got a Space Rubber Duck on my Desk 😄

[alexmccastles]

That's exactly the way I'm studying codeing and math - sharing thoughts and asking a lot of questions to my neighbour in a dormitory and explaining things to him - and it works really well! Thank you for your tips, you've got a nice channel.
P.s I adore Richard Feynman and things associated with him, but, honestly, I don't think he would be pleased for having concepts like this named after him. Don't get me wrong, that's a great productivity tip and Dick is a great guy, but he was also a modest man, so, like you've said, he would be surprised :)

[kristopherdonnelly]

I think when you build knowledge from normal language you incorporate information in a way that allows further validation and updating of other cognitive networks
Feynman's great, awesome guy

[anoj]

I always find your videos to be peaceful.

[huw]

Rubber Duck Debugging - I like that. We used to call it the Cardboard Man - because by the time you finished explaining a problem to a colleague you'd often realized the fix and a cardboard cutout would have done just as well. But now I'm wondering about the significance of the little plastic action figures and etc some people have on their desks.

[Friendznco]

Crazy, I had never heard of the Feynman Technique before I saw this video today, however over this semester I had recently changed my studying habits to be pretty much the same as the Feynman Technique and my grades shot up from a D to an HD. Can give you a guarantee that this technique is awesome!

[davejacobsen]

This reason as I was doing my undergrad work engineering/physics/ math I always worked as a tutor. Made me understand what I was learning and helped other people with their problems. Most people need help with algebra and trigonometry but some really needed help with bringing math engineering and physics together. The other students in my classes would group up and combine brain power on our classes to boot on homework.

[davidwilkie]

Another one is "when you ask yourself" for another idea or opinion.., on the understanding of the many different ways and time taken for the brain to process sensory experience and memory, and are prepared to wait until you get an alternative answer/question..

Prof Sapolsky's neurobiology lectures at Stanford give a good background to the processes involved. Mirror Tests, and mirror neurons in learning behaviours are the sort of mechanistic components a Scientist can relate to, in the general cause-effect wave-package of QM-Time, and Human Cultural perceptions.

[chopinyt]

The Ruber Duck Debugging :D Nice didn't know that, will definitely be helpfull when studying Informatics :)