The best way to learn is to teach

Looking for a way to improve your study time performance? One of the most effective ways to learn something in your course is to teach it to others. You can do it informally by helping your classmates or organizing a study group, or formally offering your services as a tutor. Whichever you choose will be the one to benefit the most!

To consider:

• If you can explain it to others, then you know you have it well prepared. You can take the exam with confidence, a confidence that you won’t get with many other study skills. You will have already been tested and approved!
• You will find that your understanding deepens when you have to explain to someone else. Teaching a subject always involves knowing a little more than what you really need to convey. You always need a little more basic information to teach successfully. Therefore, you will be forced to increase your knowledge of your subject to a more than adequate standard for your examination.
• From a simple time management standpoint, arranging to explain to someone else at a certain point what you’ve decided to share will keep the pressure going. Working alone, as you do so often when studying, makes discipline and meeting deadlines difficult. It is very easy for time to slip away, as everyone knows, without much progress. If you know that you will have to present the information the next day, you will be much more focused than you would be if you were studying on your own.
• You don’t have to be an expert, you just need to stay one step ahead of your peers, so it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Even offering to help a friend through a course, while studying it the day before, will vastly improve your grades, not to mention the satisfaction you will feel in helping someone else become familiar with a subject they thought they couldn’t handle.
• If you are helping a younger student, through routine homework or tutoring, although the content may not be an immediate part of your own study, you are consolidating information that you might have covered in previous years of your course, which It will help you absorb and understand the higher level material that you have to cover yourself. This is particularly true in mathematical or scientific studies. And maybe you can earn some pocket money in the process!
• Remembering what you have learned is essential to study. And there is no better way to remember it than to explain it to someone else.
• If everyone takes turns leading a group, it’s a great way to share the workload. While you’ll still be better prepared in the topics that you present yourself, if you’re in a hurry, you’ll at least cover much of your course in no time.
• There is tremendous satisfaction in watching the light bulb light up in someone else’s face as they understand a concept that you are trying to explain. Who knows, you may make the mistake of teaching and pursuing it as a career!
• If you gain a reputation as someone who is good at explaining or good at tackling questions, you will find that more and more people will ask you, which in turn will take you to higher and higher levels. The informal social support structure that emerges from this will also greatly increase your enjoyment of college or school.

Whether you have the opportunity to become a tutor, give exercises, lead your own study group, or simply help a friend, you will find that having to explain course material to others will greatly increase your own understanding. It cannot be beat as a way to further your studies! Try it today, you won’t regret it.