How much are you actually learning from tutorials?

Tutorials are a great way to learn new things. But you need to balance guided learning with unguided learning, or you won’t learn anything at all.

Here are 3 tips on how to get the most out of tutorials:

Re-create the tutorial in a different context

Let’s say you’ve created a Facebook clone by following a tutorial.

You can use what you’ve learned to build a Twitter clone. The benefit to this is you’re not completely on your own. Since the products are alike, you can always refer to the tutorial when you get blocked. But it also has different features which allow you to learn new things (e.g. how to impose a 280 character limit on posts).

Re-creating a tutorial is a good mix of guided and unguided learning.

Try to complete the tutorial without looking at it

How far can you get without looking at the tutorial?

When you’ve reached a point where you need to pull up the tutorial again, you’ve identified a knowledge gap. Ask yourself why you couldn’t replicate X on your own. Did the tutorial not do a good job of explaining it? Do you need to spend more time learning X?

Redoing the tutorial is a great way to quickly identify knowledge gaps you need to focus on.

Extend the tutorial with your own features

Don’t abandon what you’ve created as soon as you finish the tutorial.

Extend it with features you’re interested in learning. You’ve already created a solid foundation, why not add to it and give it your own unique twist? Not only are you learning new things, but you’re also creating a product you can call your own.

A tutorial can never cover everything. Identify core or interesting features and implement them.