Teaching what you know

How many times have people told you that the best way to learn is to teach?

This adage has been around for centuries and I highly recommend you guys to implement the ‘learning by teaching’ strategy into your study routine. Scientific studies have even shown that first-born children are more intelligent than later-born children because first-born children are able to develop a higher IQ from teaching their younger siblings.

Have you experienced the feeling where you’ve studied something but all the information you’ve studied is muddled up in your brain?

It’s like you know the content but you’re unable to explain it to someone coherently.

This is precisely why I think you should use the ‘learning by teaching’ strategy. The process of teaching not only forces you to explain your knowledge in a concise manner, it also allows you to better understand the content yourself. The process of explaining concepts to another person may also lead them to ask questions which may stimulate you to analyse a concept in a different light.

This two-way communication is invaluable because it helps you identify any gaps in your own understanding. Along with that, you’ll be able to appreciate how different people have different perspectives when it comes to interpreting certain information. Essentially, it’s a win-win situation with you helping others while also helping yourself.

Even if you don’t have the chance to teach other people, a useful study hack would be to study with the mentality that you will be teaching the content to someone else later. This mentality completely changes the way your brain processes and organises the learning material you’re studying. You start to identify the important topics and it allows you to organise the material you’re studying into a coherent structure.

So next time you study, rewire your brain with the mentality that you’re going to teach what you’re studying the very next day. From my own experience, this has helped me immensely when it comes to retaining and recalling information. This mentality also motivates you to understand the content you’re studying because you trick your mind into believing that you’re going to teach it the very next day rather than rote learning the content without really understanding it.

Building your brand

Teaching helps you build your brand. By sharing what you already know with other people, you’re able to provide value to other people. This means that the people around you will start to view you as an expert. This will have a positive impact on both your personal and professional brand because it will open up more opportunities for career development and advancement.

Also, just remember that you don’t have to be an expert before you can start teaching what you know. What is obvious to you may be enlightening to others.

Written by,

Andrew Chen