Study Cards

Teach Someone Else

Teach someone else

When you tutor other students in a subject, it’s called the Protégé effect. By doing this you improve your own understanding of the material. 

The Protégé effect can be both intentional, if the goal is learning the material, or incidental, where the student is tutoring for other reasons, such as being asked by a teacher.

Benefits of teaching others

1. Improvement of your own understanding of the material. Students who learn the material with the intention of teaching it later,

perform better when tested on that material than those who learn it just for themselves.

1. Improving motor learning and enhancing information processing.
2. Improved communication skills, increased confidence, and improved leadership ability.

How to use the Protégé effect

1. Learn the material as if you’re going to teach it to others.
   1. Learn the material well enough that you would feel comfortable explaining it to someone else later.
2. Pretend that you’re teaching the material to someone. 
   1. The more realistic this will feel, the more you will benefit from the protégé effect, so it can be worthwhile to put effort into visualizing this and to do this aloud.
3. Teach the material to other people in reality.
   1. This involves actually meeting other people and teaching them, either one-on-one or in a group setting. Though this approach takes the most effort, it can also lead to the greatest benefits, especially since knowing that you’re actually going to teach someone will likely provide you with the greatest boost to your motivation.

What other methods have you found to benefit you and your studies?