I’ve truly understood something when I can explain it clearly to someone else and back it up with competent performance.
Bloom’s two-sigma effect is real in my own experience—both in the one-on-one mentoring I received from my advisor, postdocs, and a staff scientist during grad school, and prior to that when I was learning to work in a cleanroom.
To cement new knowledge—whether it’s a biological protocol or an inorganic nanofabrication process I usually rewrite the entire procedure from memory later the same day.
That method suits me, though it doesn’t work for everyone.