Using analogies

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From the course by University of Zurich

Teaching Science at University

47 ratings

University of Zurich

Teaching Science at University

47 ratings

This course will prepare you for teaching science in higher education. In this MOOC you will learn to make your knowledge as an excellent researcher accessible to your students. We will show you how to communicate science to novices as well as advanced students in science. You will experience the value of teaching with analogies and you will be guided to train your students' competences. Based on up-to-date findings from research into teaching and learning science you will be able to - implement evidence-based strategies into your own teaching, - use students everyday-conceptions for the development of courses, - prepare analogies and models to teach in your field, - implement problem-based teaching, - set up for experiments and teach the nature of science. This course enables you to teach abstract science topics to your students and make them become active and successful learners. The course is based on lectures (videos), handouts (knowledge-to practise briefs), which supplement the knowledge taught in the lectures and assignments to implement the teaching strategies into your own practise.

From the lesson

Teaching with analogies

Welcome to the third week of Teaching Science at University! In this week we would like to show how invisible concepts become visible. In everyday life we learn so many things by comparing and contrasting. From research we know that the use of analogies and metaphors are important features in the scientific endeavor, and their use in teaching science seems a natural extension. We raise the question whether analogies are just excellent communication tools or if they can generate new knowledge. What do the majority of students really understand when analogies are used to explain abstract and difficult ideas such as molecular structures, diffusion, and plate tectonics? We show that It is important to consider students’ personal constructions since no student enters the lecture hall as “tabula rasa.” Science classrooms are common settings in which analogies are used to enhance concept learning; therefore, improving the way analogies are used in science education has important teaching and learning consequences. At the end of the third week you should be able to choose good analogies for teaching science and implement them fruitfully.

Using analogies6:49

Meet the Instructors

Kai Niebert
PhD, Professor for Science Teaching
Faculty of Science

After we were talking about some principles of teaching with analogies.

We know when to show you how you can implement an analogy in your

science classroom.

So, teaching with analogies.

What does an analogy doing?

An analogy is doing nothing else than comparing features from two worlds.

It compares features from the source domain and

experience-based source domain within abstract target domain.

So, you compare something from everyday life with a science topic.

And for example, imagine the analogy of comparing an eye with a camera.

Comparing the camera is like the eye.

So, you want to talk about the eye.

You want to communicate how an eye works and

you're using the camera as a starting point.

So, comparing different features with each other, this is what an analogy is doing.

And you have to be really clear about which kind of features are compared.

But before implementing this analogy in a science classroom,

you have to be sure how to implement it.

And there colleagues from Australia developed a guide that can really help

you to structure your implementation of analogies, the so-called FAR guide.

Focus, Action, Reflection.

What does this mean, focus?

You are starting to focus before you enter the classroom.

So, do not use as a metaphor and

analogy spontaneously but reflect on them before you're using them.

And you have to be sure about the concept, the science concept to be communicated.

Is this unfamiliar to your students?

If this is difficult, where is it difficult to understand?

And is it abstract?

And your second, you have to be sure about your students.

Where are your students standing?

What are their preconceptions?

What do they already know about the concept to be taught?

And the third is you have to be sure about the analogy itself, about the anagram.

Because the analog,

it needs to be familiar to the students to really be successful for science teaching.

We have analyzed a lot of analogies and we wanted to find out

why a lot of literature about the use of analogies shows that

often it's not successful to teach with metaphors and analogies.

And what we have found, that in 80% of the cases,

in 80% of the cases where teaching with an analogy breaks down,

we have analogies that are not familiar to the students.

For example, comparing an atom with the solar system.

This is a very popular metaphor or a very popular analogy in school science,

but who has experienced with the solar system?

Or for example, the analogy of the brain as a computer.

Who knows how a computer works?

So, what you have to do is you really have to choose examples that are not only

familiar to you as a teacher, but

when you know that they are familiar to your students too.

Action.

So, you're in the classroom, you're standing in the classroom and

implementing a metaphor or an analogy.

So, when your implementing an analogy,

you have to be sure to discuss about the likes and the unlikes of the analogy.

So, you have to communicate.

Where does it work, where can we compare features from

the analog to the target, and where can't we do this?

Where does the analogy break down?

So for example, the camera is like the eye.

There you can compare the cap of the objective with the eyelids

to protect, or you can compare the idea that you can

focus the camera with how you can focus with the eye.

But you can't compare for example that the camera is taking one picture after

the other while your eyes are continuously sending pictures to the brain.

So, discussing where the analogy works and

where does it break down is a very important feature

of implementing a metaphor or analogy into a science classroom.

Reflection.

So, you have finished your lesson, you have finished your lecture and

the most important thing in teaching is that you reflect on how did it go?

Have I been successful in science teaching?

And then you have to reflect, where did the analogy work?

Was it successful?

And you can reflect on how to change it next time,

how to develop this analogy a bit further.

So, to give some structure for the implementation of analogies,

I would propose that before you enter your lesson, before you entered your lecture,

you make some notes about the science concept to find out.

Is it complex?

Is it unfamiliar?

Is it abstract?

You make some notes about where are your students standing,

what are their preconception, their relevant preconceptions on this field.

You make some notes about the analogy itself.

And this means that you reflect and

really write down where this analogy is experienceable for

your students, is this analogy from the everyday life?

And then, what are doing next is that you explicitly right down the likes and

the unlikes of the analogy.

So, comparing the camera with the eye, it means comparing different elements.

Or for example, a very popular analogy in biology is comparing

the protein biosynthesis with building a house.

So, the master plan is the DNA, or the architect's office is the nucleus,

or copying a master plan is transcription, and so on.

So, really write down where the analogy works and

write down where it breaks down so that you are prepared for

your lesson and you can implement it very fruitfully.

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