We Learn through Analogies
2 likes2,055 views
The document emphasizes the importance of using analogies and metaphors in teaching to enhance student understanding and retention by allowing them to map new concepts onto existing knowledge. It outlines a structured approach for educators to facilitate students in creating their own analogies through research, diagramming, and consensus-building. Ultimately, the goal is to improve learning outcomes by encouraging students to engage deeply with content rather than merely memorizing information.
We Learn through Analogies
- 1. ANALOGIES IMPROVE STUDENT UNDERSTANDING AND RETENTION
- 2. WE THINK BY ANALOGY. SO TAP INTO THAT MECHANISM! “Cognitive scientists have identified metaphors as a fundamental tool of human thought; we use metaphors so frequently and automatically that we seldom notice them unless they are called to our attention. Metaphors are used to structure our experience and thereby make it meaningful. A major objective of teaching should therefore be to help students ‘straighten out’ their metaphors.” Jackson, Dukerich, and Hestenes
- 3. WHERE DO ANALOGIES COME FROM? FROM INTERACTING WITH THE WORLD. IT’S 100% EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING.
- 4. THE PROCESS STARTS WHEN, AS BABIES, WE EXPLORE THE WORLD Our first analogies come from the physical world when as babies we explored, made observations, drew conclusions, and compared new situations to previous experience. Many of the most effective analogies are visual or tactile. 30% of our neurons are dedicated to vision. Hearing gets only 3%. So much for our lectures!
- 5. ALL BABIES DO THIS! THEY CREATE ANALOGIES AND REVISE THEM WITH EXPERIENCE.
- 6. WE USE METAPHORS AND ANALOGIES EVERY DAY “She took my breath away.” I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. His comment hit me like a ton of bricks. She stands in the shadow of her famous sister. It’s like Whack-a-Mole: we fix one problem and another pops up! You will overcome this obstacle and reach your goal.
- 7. WHY DOES LANGUAGE CONTAIN SO MANY METAPHORS AND ANALOGIES? Because we think analogically. When we encounter something new, we try to match its traits to something we already understand.We see if this is another example of a category we have already loaded into our minds and worldview. If not, we create a new category for it. With everyone doing this, of course analogies seep into our language.
- 8. HOW DO ANALOGIES SHAPE UNDERSTANDING? Metaphor or Analogy Target IdeaAnalogies Map Traits onto Target ideas And provides a structure to organize information logically.
- 9. THIS MAKES SENSE BECAUSE Meta come from the Greek for ‘over, across, beyond’ Phor comes from the Greek for ‘to carry across’ So metaphors carry traits across from the metaphor to the idea being explained. • Analogies (Gr ana = upon logos= word) make a comparison, based on structure.
- 10. HERE’S AN EXAMPLE “She cast her mind back to 1965.” To ‘cast back’ is a metaphor of the mind as a receptacle or pool of memories. This metaphor gets activated by the word “cast,” which is strongly associated with fishing.
- 11. WHAT TRAITS ARE MAPPED? Casting for Fish Recalling Memories Maps Traits onto Uncertainty- what will be pulled up? Variety-lots of possibilities. Murkyness- can’t see into the pool. Contained- memories float in a specific pool. Leisure-it is pleasant.
- 12. AND IT CREATES A FRAME OR SCHEMA FOR INFORMATION Memories are like fish—small, large, beautiful, maybe scary… The pool is a receptacle of memories… To relive the memories, we simply “cast” for a memory… One memory leads to another… Thoughts and feelings arise with the memory…
- 13. ARE ANALOGIES ALWAYS ACCURATE? Not completely! They tend to simplify the topic, making it more manageable. Sometimes the metaphor colors or skews the topic, as in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Hippopotamus” which praises the Catholic Church, but the title and repeated references to the ungainly hippo suggests criticism of the Church as not well suited for its mission. Awkward Bloated Outdated Hypocritical
- 14. NOTICE THAT THE WORD ‘HYPOCRITICAL’ HAS THE SAME VOCAL PATTERN AS THE WORD ‘HIPPOPOTAMUS Hip - po - pot’ - a - mus Hyp - o - crit’ - i - cal Eliot’s poem is purposely hypocritical in praising the Church yet calling it a hippopotamus.
- 15. ANALOGIES MULTIPLY AS WE DEEPEN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THE WORLD WORKS. New analogies connect to existing analogies, creating networks and domains of understanding that can be accessed more easily. The connections grow to build a worldview, the analogies get refined to match reality, and newer analogies become more vivid and meaningful.
- 16. BUT SOMETIMES OUR STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING IS INCOMPLETE OR WRONG AS TEACHERS, OUR JOB IS TO HELP THEM CORRECT THEIR MISUNDERSTANDINGS.
- 17. FOR EXAMPLE Babies learn:When I push, it goes. They don’t learn about friction.
- 18. THEY CARRY THIS MISPERCEPTION TO HIGH SCHOOL While the teacher explains friction, they think of other things. Not friction
- 19. THEY NEED TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THEIR ANALOGIES This is so obvious! Can I just tell them how it should be? NO,THEY WILL IGNOREYOU, BECAUSE THEY DON’T REALIZE THAT THEIR ANALOGIES ARE CROOKED!
- 20. THEY CRAM FOR THE TEST Might even get an A But they forget what they crammed
- 21. NEVER CHANGING THEIR FAULTY WORLDVIEW It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t happening in most classes, most days!
- 22. SHOULD WE GIVE STUDENTS GOOD ANALOGIES FOR THE MATERIAL THEY LEARN? It won’t hurt, but students will only pick up on a couple of the mapped traits.The best and most durable analogies are those the students create themselves.This is because,“those who do, learn.” Students who process information, develop a theory about it, and create their own analogies gain deeper understanding and better, more long-lasting recall.The material and ideas get organized into the schema and become part of the students’ worldview.
- 23. HOW CAN WE DESIGN LESSONS THAT HELP STUDENTS CREATE ANALOGIES? 1. Research. Design challenges and experiences that cause students (in groups of 3) to process and understand information, with examples that are clear and focused. 2. Diagram. Have them diagram the entities involved in the topic. 3. Agree. They must reach a consensus on their theory about what happens. 4. Create Analogy. They should derive a suitable analogy or metaphor. 5. Present. And present their findings to the class. In other words,we engineer our classes based on how students learn best.
- 24. THE STEPS FOLLOW THE MODELING INSTRUCTION TEACHING METHOD Modeling Instruction has students analyze information before hearing theories or formulas. It started in Physics courses, where it consistently led to higher retention rates—from 42% in traditional courses to 69-80% in Modeling Instruction Courses.That is nearly double. It’s now used in Biology, Chemistry, History, and English Literature courses . See American ModelingTeachers Association online.
- 25. EXAMPLE CHALLENGE: WHAT WERE THE CULTURAL CONSEQUENCES OF MEDIEVAL TRADE ON THE SILK ROAD? STEP 1 Research: First, students need to learn about the topic.They can Watch part of the 1988 Japanese film The Silk Road” Read excerpts from articles and books on the Silk Road. Watch the humorous youtube history episode “Long Story Short 7:The Silk Road.” (contains inappropriate language) Read “Three Stories from the Silk Road” (online) The teacher selects materials that are clear and focused.
- 26. NEXT, THEY DIAGRAM THE ENTITIES AND FORCES INVOLVED Step 2: Diagram. Give them erasable white boards and markers to diagram forces and entities. They should use symbols, not words. A force can be an arrow, an entity (the market, a trader) can be a circle or square, etc. They should show relationships.
- 27. THEY MUST REACH CONSENSUS ON A THEORY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS Step 3: Agree. Students discuss and defend their ideas, learning how to change each others’ minds, as well as their own, in order to reach a consensus.
- 28. THEY BRAINSTORM POSSIBLE ANALOGIES Step 4: Create Analogy. Derive a suitable analogy or metaphor. This analogy shows that as people from different cultures (different colored threads coming in from left) encounter others in the market (box with wavy threads), their ideas get challenged, enriched, and revised.Their interactions form bonds between peoples (woven threads on right) that enrich all of the cultures that traded along the Silk Road.
- 29. HOW TO BRAINSTORM ANALOGIES Ask, what else is this “shaped” like? How does it make you feel? What else feels like that? Consider other fields: biology, music, sports, history, electronics, art, advertising… Use divergent thinking (free-association, creativity, free-wheeling, outside of the box). Include everything—no judgements yet.
- 30. MAKE A LIST OF POSSIBLE ANALOGIES Highlight the top choices. Drop the ones that seem less fruitful. Do you need to continue brainstorming?
- 31. ‘BOARD MEETING’ Step 5: Present. Student groups share their analogies and diagrams with the class at the Board Meeting.White boards are compared, questioned, and defended. Often, other classmates suggest useful improvements.
- 32. HERE IS PHYSICS TEACHER MATT GREENWOLFE’S CLASS USING MODELING INSTRUCTION
- 33. SAMPLE ANALOGIES & METAPHORS The Great Gatsby: Wealth is a facade that masks sadness, loneliness, and moral bankruptcy.
- 34. ANOTHER EXAMPLE METAPHOR Like an open circuit breaker, when politics heightened animosities and made trade dangerous, Maritime Trade in the Indian Ocean halted. When times are safe, the circuit breaker closes, and trade thrives.
- 35. AND ANOTHER A semicolon acts like a weight balance, where the material to the left of the semicolon has about the same ‘weight’ as that on the right, and the topics are related. (In the example the students used, the words were also paired.)
- 36. THIS LOOKS LIKE IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME! Quite true. However, wouldn't you rather your students learn 7 things well, rather than racing through 17 things and learning very little? Which makes you the better teacher? Don’t get caught in the trap of “content envy”! Just because Teacher A covers 12 novels, or 17 biology units, or 25 historical events doesn’t mean the students understood, organized the information, and will be able to recall it again.They will cram for the test, then forget most of it.
- 37. WE THINK BY ANALOGY— TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! Tap into the power of the brain to make learning efficient, meaningful and durable. Students like to think—when the task is challenging, yet achievable. All information gets interesting when it can be deployed to solve a meaningful challenge.
- 38. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? The ‘conveyor belt’ of units is not effective for durable learning. Less content can mean more learning. We think by analogy so teachers should tap into that mechanism. It’s best when students derive their own analogies. Those who do, learn. The ‘units’ all look the same! Yawn…
- 39. ABOUT ME CAROLE HAMILTON • I’m a retired English teacher who has researched extensively in how students learn and how best to teach to how they learn. I hope you enjoy my presentations. Look for my new book on how new insights from cognitive science can improve how we teach. 39