The Explanation Effect | Bas 21 din ka josh?
21 Lock-down days! Well, almost everyone on my LinkedIn is learning something new. Someone is learning a new skill, someones learning to cook, someones learning to code, and more.
I am sure, if you are reading my articles, you also happen to be learning something new during these days! Now, the question is whatever you learn, how long will you be able to remember it? Bas 21 din ka josh?
Why is that you remember everything from your favorite series, scene-by-scene, but not anything that's actually productive (Well, that's subjective. But you get my point.)
There is a reason behind it! You don't go out with your friends discussing about your new skill or the new programming language you learnt so enthusiastically, the way you discuss with your friends about "Friends" (I haven't watched a single episode btw) or about cocaine from "Narcos" with your colleagues.
What exactly happens when you discuss those series with your friends? You narrate everything, from top to bottom, again and again, to friends, colleagues, cousins, until something new comes up. When you narrate it, you try to remember hard. You retrieve it.
There's something called "The Retrieval Practice" - a way of enhancing your knowledge and boosting your learning, by recalling what you've learnt. (Basically, defining "Cramming" in nice good words)
But, how exactly are you suppose to retrieve the new skills you learnt, the delicious dishes you learnt to cook, or the new programming language you learnt to code? Well, its not exactly a topic you'd want to discuss while hanging out with your friends. So what do you do? You teach!
You teach whatever you learn. You actually talk about it to people and tell them about it. Find like minded people or people who are interested in listening to you (students). When you teach, you will try hard to remember what you learnt (unless you want to make a fool out of yourself,which is also fine, sometimes) and that's how you retrieve.
And, oh please, don't be worried about finding students, unless you want to charge someone else, for boosting your knowledge and memory (re-read it!)
So, if you want these 21 days to be super effective for you and you don't want to forget what you just read about, you know what to do. Go, click that SHARE button (:P), tell your friends about it.
I first read about this practice in an article, where the author has named it as "The Explanation Effect". Read it here - https://medium.com/accelerated-intelligence/explanation-effect-why-you-should-always-teach-what-you-learn-9800983a0ea1