Mar 1

Written by:
2010/03/01 08:10 AM 

We all need to improve our knowledge and skills daily. The most applied way is to be taught by someone else. This would involve taking in knowledge via audio, someone teaching us as we take notes and listen, or visually as we watch someone else  or read books or research websites.

But I want to encourage you to adopt another method. Learning by teaching or Ldl. This method requires you to teach someone else, possibly on something that you do not know, or do not know well. By doing this you actually improve your own skills and knowledge.

Why not introduce to your blog a few tutorials. Turn your blog into a teaching forum. A place where people can find useful information. A place where they can come to learn.

Turn your blog into a place where you are learning and becoming better at what you do. Become an authority at what you do.

Teach what you know.

Obviously the easiest way to start is to teach on what you know. This will serve to improve what you know and hone your skills. Don’t be fooled to thinking that if you know a particular subject, if your blog concentrates on a particular niche that you know all that there is to know.

By teaching on what you know will actually improve your skills and knowledge. Make your blog a better blog.

Remember nothing out there remains stagnant. Maybe what you know has changed. Teaching what you know keeps you abreast and up to date with what is out there with regards to your particular niche.

Teach what you do not know.

This is the difficult one. But it does force you into learning and researching a particular topic. Thereby teaching yourself.

The danger of this approach is that you can open yourself up to huge criticism by showing people how much you actually do not know.

To combat that, be sure that you have researched every aspect of the particular subject that you are writing about.

Enhance your credibility by referring and referencing as much external material as you can. Don’t be to overzealous, start off with some simple and easy topics and aspects, then slowly move into something that's more difficult and meaty.

There are people out there that are at all different stages of  knowledge and skill in any particular niche. So starting off with the simple is not a reflection on what you do not know. But is a gift sent to those who do not know anything.

As you research and learn write about what you have learned. Put it into a tutorial. Put yourself into a teaching position and make it such that you are teaching those who do not know.

Teach what you dislike or are uncomfortable with.

I am a .NET C# programmer. Often times I enter into lively debates with the Linux and PHP programmers. Sticking up for my programming career choice and defending my chosen niche.

But I am no stranger to PHP or as we call it the enemy. I often use PHP to write and develop applications. But I also write about PHP and actually post them on this blog.

What this does is actually give me new insight on the other side. I can actually find out their side of the story, if you will.

It certainly gives me a new understanding and a new appreciation for other things, like PHP and MySQL etc.

Start teaching and learning at the same time on things that you dislike. Perhaps write a post or tutorial on something that you are comfortable with. Maybe even write an article on your competition or about an opposing niche.

I found that by doing this I became a better programmer, a person that is more rounded and better skilled. I started to learn things that I can actually apply to my own programming knowledge and use that in .NET and C#.

Conclusion

By teaching someone else you are actually teaching yourself. But the difference is that you are forced to learn more in depth and to be more certain of what you are teaching about.

You actually start learning things about a particular topic which you might not actually teach about but are there to support your teaching. Turning you into the ultimate guru on that particular topic.

I would much rather learn from a person that is teaching than from a person that is being taught.

How about you? What are your thoughts?

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