What an earthquake taught me about teaching. @benjaminkeep

Uploaded March 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

What does government advice about what to do in an earthquake have to do with teaching? Well, the standard earthquake lesson has the same problem that many grade school lessons have.

Join my online learning community: benjaminkeep.com/community

The source for over half of the world lives in urban settings" is here: ourworldindata.org/urbanization

On the five-paragraph essay, I was inspired a while back by this piece: Labaree, D. (2018). The Five Paragraph Fetish. aeon.co/essays/writing-essays-by-formula-teaches-students-how-to-not-think

On what I mean by mathematical modeling, see:

m3challenge.siam.org/sites/default/files/uploads/siam-guidebook-final-press.pdf

On the rise of mathematical modeling in math curricula internationally, see:

Arseven, A. (2015). Mathematical Modelling Approach in Mathematics Education. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 3(12), 973-980. files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1083314.pdf

For math teaching approaches that I think are generally pretty good, see:

us.johncattbookshop.com/collections/frontpage/products/teaching-math-with-examples
Beast Academy (have not actually used, but plan to with my son when he gets older)
youcubed.org

What an earthquake taught me about teaching.

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$Research Reveals 4 Surprising Facts About Learning Scientific research often requires us to rethink how things work. Here a four facts that get us thinking the right way about how learning works. 00:00 Fact 1 1:07 Fact 2 3:13 Fact 3 5:06 Fact 4 6:53 A cool thing to do My giveinternet.org link: https://giveinternet.org/BenjaminKeep Join my online learning community: https://www.benjaminkeep.com/community Edited by Presage Media: https://www.presage.media/ References On the testing effect: Karpicke, J. D. (2012). Retrieval-Based Learning: Active Retrieval Promotes Meaningful Learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(3), 157–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412443552 Pan, S. C., & Rickard, T. C. (2018). Transfer of test-enhanced learning: Meta-analytic review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 144(7), 710–756. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000151 (testing effects do transfer) Jensen, J. L., McDaniel, M. A., Kummer, T. A., Godoy, P. D. D. M., & St. Clair, B. (2020). Testing Effect on High-Level Cognitive Skills. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(3), ar39. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-10-0193 (testing effect works for “high-level” questions; not just low-level questions) On the deceptiveness of immediate measures, see: Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society, 2(59-68). On the importance of prior knowledge and for an interesting overview of how learning works: John Bransford, Nancy Vye, Reed Stevens, Pat Kuhl, Daniel Schwartz, et al.. Learning Theories and Education: Toward a Decade of Synergy. P. Alexander & P. Winne. Handbook of Educational Psychology (2nd Edition), Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum., 95 p., 2005. ffhal-00190628f. https://telearn.hal.science/hal-00190628/document On the fraction study: Patel, R., Liu, R., & Koedinger, K. R. (2016). When to Block versus Interleave Practice? Evidence Against Teaching Fraction Addition before Fraction Multiplication. In CogSci. For other ideas about ordering effects, see: Schwartz, D. L., & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition and instruction, 16(4), 475-5223. https://aaalab.stanford.edu/assets/papers/earlier/A_time_for_telling.pdf Fyfe, E. R., DeCaro, M. S., & Rittle‐Johnson, B. (2014). An alternative time for telling: When conceptual instruction prior to problem solving improves mathematical knowledge. British journal of educational psychology, 84(3), 502-519. https://louisville.edu/psychology/decaro/lab/publications-2/FyfeDeCaroRittleJohnson2014_BJEP.pdf$