Most practitioners don’t have a plan when it comes to learning.
Continuing education is a huge investment of time and money. Courses come at a high cost, we should want to maximize our investment by learning as much as possible. This is where the Feynman Technique comes in.
Unfortunately, most practitioners won’t maximize the return on their investment from continuing education. Let’s be honest, no one can understand a topic in a 2 day weekend course that’s jam packed with information. You’re lucky to walk away remembering 1-2 pearls that you can use on Monday morning.
To improve on your return from continuing education, use the Feynman Technique.
The Feyanman Technique of Mastering Anything
The essence of the Feynman technique is to make the complex simple and concise. Here are the 4 steps to learning using the Feynman method:
Identify the subject
Most courses will go through a variety of subjects. Identify the subtopics of the course. Write them all down. Start with this approach when trying to better understand any topic you want to research.
Teach it to a child
For each subtopic, write down everything you know (or now know after a course) so a young kid would understand. We often use jargon to sound smart but that can be confusing and lead to misunderstanding.
Simplicity is wisdom.
“When we speak without jargon, it frees us from hiding behind knowledge we don’t have” – Richard Feynamn
Children also have very short attention spans, so avoid adding any fluff. Get to the point.
Identify knowledge gaps
After writing down what you know about the topic, go through and find gaps in your knowledge. What’s missing? What don’t you know? What don’t you understand well? Now you can go back to your notes or find research papers to fill in the unknown information.
Organize your notes to tell a story
Put your concise concepts in order to develop a story. Most people will struggle to remember facts but will remember a tale. Then start sharing your tale.
Don’t know where to start sharing and refining your story? Here are a few ideas:
Teach your clients
Your clients should have a basic understanding of what you’re doing for them to create buy-in. Most of them also don’t have a great understanding of the processes of human body. This is a great opportunity for you to simplify a complex concept and teach it to them. If you can get your client to understand this concept, you’ve done a great job.
Host an in-service
After taking a course and going through the Feynman process, set up a time to host an in-service. This will help you simplify the concepts and create a story with it to teach your peers. You can also use Q&A to poke holes in your story. Concepts with repeating questions or clarifications will need to be simplified even more.
Reach out to other facilities
Most people won’t turn down a free seminar. After you’ve done an in-service for your peers, continue to refine the story. Present it to more people to get different views, comments and questions.
If everyone says no, do it anyway
If everyone you ask declines your offer to teach them something, build it anyway. Going through the process will allow you to better understand the complex concepts. It will also help you find the areas you don’t understand well and building the story will help you make sense of it all.
Conclusion
In summary, after taking a course:
1 – Write down all the topics/ideas
2 – Write down everything you know like you’re writing them for a kid
3 – Identify the areas you need to better understand
4 – Create a story using the simple and concise concepts you’ve learned and start sharing it.
If you follow these steps, I’m confident you’ll start maximizing your continuing education.