Use the Feynman Method to Determine If You’re Ready for the Test

Study methods are usually something you can do in your spare time to maximize your knowledge, but involving someone else in your process can be helpful. That’s what Richard Feynman, the theoretical physicist, thought, at least in theory. According to many possibly unreliable sources, a Nobel Prize winner once said, “If you can’t explain something in simple words, you don’t understand it. The best way to learn is to teach.”

It’s quite possible that Feynman never said this at all – the closest documented quote I could find , courtesy of his colleague and fellow physicist David Goodstein, states that Feynman’s inability to break down a subject (in this case the complex question of particle physics) into all the details the level at which a freshman could understand it meant that science did not understand it effectively.

But whether this teaching method actually came from Feynman or not, the basic principle – to know that you really understand a subject, you must be able to teach it to someone else – seems reasonable. Here’s how Feynman’s research method works and how you can use it to master new concepts.

What is Feynman’s method?

Feynman’s teaching technique is so popular for learning and retaining information that it is recommended to college students and even real-life professionals . This is a four-step technique that, when used correctly, should help you fully understand the material you are studying. Here are the necessary steps:

1. Determine exactly what material you need to learn (to do this, try using a method like KWL or SQ3R to determine exactly which parts of the topic are most important before you even begin), and then study it yourself using the methods that have proven to be most effective for you.
2. Once you feel comfortable with the material, teach it to someone else—ideally someone who has never studied it. Explain the material as if you were a beginner (Feynman suggests imagining you’re talking to a child), as thoroughly and directly as possible.
3. Return to the source material whenever you encounter an element that you find difficult to explain in detail.
4. Rewrite and streamline your notes, breaking complex topics into simpler parts and refining the topic until you reach a level of detail that seems too simple.

How does Feynman’s method work?

The most important element of this technique is to analyze and simplify the material until you feel you can explain it all to a child. As David Goodstein’s story above shows, Feynman believed that if you can’t reduce a topic to information that a young student can understand, you don’t really understand it. (A similar quote has also been attributed to Albert Einstein, so consider it educational philosophy on its feet—though there’s no evidence that Einstein actually said anything like that .)

This will work great if you choose to teach it to an adult who is unfamiliar with the topic, or even just pretend to do it by simplifying the material yourself in essay format. However, ideally you will teach the topic to someone who can give you feedback. They may ask a question you can’t answer, or help you make connections between concepts during a post-lesson discussion. This feedback will help you as you move on to the third stage of reviewing materials, as it will give you additional information to consider as you do so.

When you’re done refining your notes, try teaching the topic again to someone else, or move on to a different method, such as distributed practice or supplemental teaching , where you review your simplified notes periodically until you fully understand the material.