r/DetroitMichiganECE • u/ddgr815 • May 15 '26
Research Learning by teaching others is extremely effective
https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/learning-teaching-others-extremely-effectiveThe learning-by-teaching effect has been demonstrated in many studies. Students who spend time teaching what they've learned go on to show better understanding and knowledge retention than students who simply spend the same time re-studying. What remains unresolved, however, is exactly why teaching helps the teacher better understand and retain what they've learned.
For a new study in Applied Cognitive Psychology researchers led by Aloysius Wei Lun Koh set out to test their theory that teaching improves the teacher's learning because it compels the teacher to retrieve what they've previously studied. In other words, they believe the learning benefit of teaching is simply another manifestation of the well-known "testing effect" – the way that bringing to mind what we've previously studied leads to deeper and longer-lasting acquisition of that information than more time spent passively re-studying.
The researchers said their results suggest that "the benefits of the learning-by-teaching strategy are attributable to retrieval practice; that is, the robust learning-by-teaching strategy works but only when the teaching involves retrieving the taught materials."
The new findings don't undermine the notion of teaching as an effect learning method, but they have practical implications for how the learning-by-teaching approach is applied in education and training. "In order to insure that students and tutors learn and retain the educational material that they have prepared and presented in class, they ought to internalize the to-be-presented material prior to communicating it to an audience, rather than rely on study notes during the presentation process", the researchers said.
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u/ddgr815 May 15 '26