teaching is the best way to learn

[...] learning by teaching is a newer and under-studied strategy that more teachers should take advantage of. He said most teachers know about many other evidence-based learning strategies, such as summarizing, mapping and self-testing, but learning by teaching tends to not get as much spotlight. Richard noted that this learning strategy is usually thought of as “peer tutoring” but there are many other ways to go about it.

[...] learning by teaching has one of the largest effect sizes of the strategies he has studied. For that research, Richard and his former student Logan Fiorella (currently an assistant professor at the University of Georgia) conducted a random control trial that compared groups of students who used the learning by teaching strategy with those who do not.

Findings: They found that when students actually teach the content of a lesson, they develop a deeper and longer-lasting understanding of the material than students who do not teach it. Interestingly, they found that the act of preparing to teach alone can lead to short-term gains, but the act of preparing to teach coupled with actually teaching another person is what leads to long-term retention and deeper learning.

Richard said that when students are told they are going to have to teach something, they prepare better. Then when the students actually do the teaching, the questions asked by their “pupil” help them build knowledge by elaborating on the material, monitoring their own understanding and fixing misunderstandings—all of which help students construct deeper meaning and long-term understanding.

Learning by teaching can help improve student efficacy, confidence and communication skills. In addition to learning content, Richard said that students learn productive beliefs about themselves. In his words: “If students feel confident enough to explain it to someone else, they might develop a higher self-efficacy. That’s going to be motivating to see themselves as competent learners.”