Why teaching is the best method for learning and how you can implement it?

Teaching, pretending to teach or preparing to teach are methods that can be employed by students to understand their subject better. This phenomenon is known as 'The Protégé Effect'. We will explore why this works.

Introduction

If you're trying to learn something, traditional wisdom suggests to rote memorize information again and again by smashing it into our brains​. This might work sometimes but even when it does, the learner just knows the what, not the how and the why. This can be solved by learning to teach.

While someone is preparing to teach a subject, they firstly have a responsibility. After the end of the class, no one should be wondering what the topic was even about. Taking the students from knowing nothing half and hour ago to having a basic understanding of the subject is not an easy feat and requires alot of preparation which means that the teacher should have crystal clear concepts.

Secondly, the teacher must also prepare the subject from different perspectives and point of views because the students can ask any kind of question. It would not look good if the teacher themselves cannot answer any questions that might arise reasonably well.

Our brain also works harder when we are trying to learn information for someone else rather than ourselves. An amazing paper from Stanford University goes into the intricasies of why that is here.

How to take advantage of this effect?

Okay, so we have established that this phenomenon works, now we just have to implement it into our study sessions.

Step 1: Learn as if you have to give a lecture to students. Whatever paragraph or subtopic you read from a textbook, repeat it to yourself in your own words.

Step 2: After finishing the topic or chapter, apply the rubber duck method. Pick any object near you and try to teach it what you just learned. This can help to point out different weaknesses in your concepts which you can then try to work on. It can also provide you with the confidence required to sit an exam in a calm manner.

Step 3: Teach to your peers or friends. This is optional but when you teach to another student and in turn they have some confusion or have questions, your concepts are cemented.

Conclusion

We discussed what the protege effect is, why it works and how we can implement it into our study sessions.

Personal Example:

I had a topic of learning the anatomy of the brainstem. I opened up pictures of the brainstem without labels and starting saying what I remembered to my pen. I was suprised by how much I had memorized but also by how much I could not remember. I targeted my weaknesses and I got much better. Without this method, I could never have known what I did not understand fully which needed more attention. Try it out with your own topics and subjects, you will be suprised by how effective this study techniques is.