The Power of the Learn, Build, Teach Loop
Have you ever been reading, listening to, or watching something, and five minutes after you're finished, you can't remember a single thing? It happens to me all the time. But here's something even worse: you practice building the thing you just learned about, and even if you struggle, you get it done. That's a huge achievement, and you should be proud of yourself. I mean, you did it! But here's the issue: you may be able to reproduce it, but do you truly know it?
You might, but how can you be sure? Teach it. Teaching forces us to go deeper into a concept or subject than we normally would. It reveals the gaps in our understanding.
Before I started to learn to code, I was an ESL teacher for many years. Here is my shameful admission: when I started teaching, I was terrible at English grammar. Having to repeatedly explain grammar concepts at an easy-to-understand level to people who struggled to understand even basic spoken English was a real eye-opener.
Now that I'm learning to code, I use a three-step process to help me internalize the concepts I'm exposed to in my courses.
Learn: This is the easiest part. I spend time with the course material, trying to understand the concept while taking mini-challenges on specific points.
Build: Next, I build a slightly larger (but still small) project based on the material I just covered, sprinkling in some earlier things I've learned.
Teach: This is the most difficult part of the loop. I try to re-explain the concept with examples, breaking it down to the easiest level I can. This is otherwise known as the Feynman Method.
Today is a perfect example of how this process helped me and can help you. I took a four-hour block and spent the first 90 minutes or so reviewing and practicing setting up a basic React application—a simple business card in this case. For the next 90 minutes, I set up a React project from scratch with the proper file structure. I then built the components, pieced it all together, and pushed the final product to GitHub.
This is important because it's not just about learning to code; it's about learning how to build. It's about taking an idea and making it into something real that people can use to solve a problem.
