Courtesy:C H Mahadevan
Most of us would have experienced this first hand. During our
school/college, we would have taught some topics (in the form of presentations or seminars). Even after several years, we remember most of the details very clearly and are confident of those topics. The reason being that the moment we reach a stage where we can teach a topic or concept to others, it means we have achieved certain level of mastery over it.
Reaching such a stage requires pre-requisites (intermediate stages) like preparation for the topic (collecting relevant info from knowledge sources), understanding the topic, applying the knowledge from that topic and more. Since the student can ask questions for clarification, all such possible questions must be anticipated and that in turn requires thorough understanding, analysis & evaluation on the topic.
Thanks to the internet era, "getting knowledge" is straightforward today. But the real challenge is in "understanding". i.e The challenge is not in knowing the name of something, but it is in knowing something.
Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman had a very interesting methodology (Feynman Technique) to understand any topic with just 5 steps as follows:
1) Choose a concept: Yes, this method works for any topic we can think of. To illustrate this methodology, let's consider a concept called "computer programming"
2) Explain it like I am 5 year old: Avoid jargons and try to explain it like as if the student does not know even the basics of this topic. i.e Imagine you are explaining it to a 5 year old.
In normal case, we would try to explain computer programming as: "The process of typing code in an IDE and compiling it into a software program which can be executed on a computer."
Would a 5 year old understand it? No. It is full of jargons like code, IDE, compile, software, execute etc. How about explaining computer programming as: "The process of teaching a computer to do something, by writing an instruction guide for it"
3) Pinpoint any gap in the knowledge: In the above step, you might encounter dead end due to gaps in the knowledge you have acquired in this topic. In such a case, get back to the books and fill those gaps.
In our computer programming illustration, in the previous step we did not mention that the instruction guide must be written in such a way that it can be understood by the computer. i.e It must be written in a specific language which can be understood by the computer.
Hence, we must now explain computer programming as: "The process of teaching a computer to do something by writing an instruction guide for it in the language it can understand"
4) Use analogies: Sometimes, the concepts can be corelated to activities or objects that we come across in our everyday lives as analogies which can help in better visualization and understanding.
In our computer programming illustration, we can use an analogy of training a pet. We can say that computer programming is no different from training a pet dog. We use a series of signs & gestures to train a dog to stand up vertically and do a "high-five". Later, whenever we just extend our hand, the dog will stand up and do a "high-five". Similarly, we use a series of instructions which are understandable by the computer to write a guidebook (software program) and after it is trained (program is compiled & installed), whenever we gesture (click on the software icon), the computer will carry out the task (execute the program).
