This article was written by one of the Stepping Stone Tutors Study Skills Tutors. If you know of anyone who might be interested in study skills tuition, please do get in contact.

Scott Young started his blog 6 years ago while a student. Since graduating though, his interest in building skills and further education has only been heightened. We recently posted on our Facebook 

page a link video that Scott recorded detailing his latest challenge: to complete a 4 year MIT course in Computer Science in just 12 months (see the video here).

But just today we came across an audio interview Scott had with Corbett barr of Expert Enough- a site we love over here at Stepping Stone Tutors! But what I wanted to share were a couple of points Scott made in that interview that should be of value to you, as someone who’s looking to improve their knowledge, whether you’re using one of our online or in home tutors, or simply self-studying online.

Scott often refers to the way people who learn fast are able to effectively link the data and knowledge they’re processing  together, which therefore generates a much more deep rooted understanding of the topic being taken on. This is an alternative to simple ‘rote memorisation’, where students are challenged with the almost impossible of simply learning a ton of facts only to regurgitate these when asked about them. This ability to link things together- to understand in a much fuller way is what he calls ‘holistic learning’.

A method that’s often used to utilise this method of learning called the ‘Feynman technique’, which is an informal philosophy of how we can learn something deeply. As an alternative to rote memorization, which could take hundreds of hours for some subjects, the Feynman technique can be applied effectively to almost any subject. The video below will explains exactly what this is, and how you can apply this to your own studies, whether that’s for your upcoming ASVAB test, GED classes, K-16 classes, or test preparation (read about how we can help with this here) and revision.

The reason this technique works so much is because most people simply don’t know what it is that they’re trying to learn. They don’t understand which bits of a subject they need to expand on in order to full understand what it is they’re dealing with. The Feynman technique, however, highlights the exact aspects of each subject that you need to look into more in order to holistically grasp any topic you like.