Analogies in science and science teaching

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 167-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Brown ◽  
Susan Salter
Keyword(s):  
Science Teaching ◽  
Student Understanding ◽  
Great Care ◽  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Mapping Theory ◽  
Practice Of Science

Analogies are often used in science, but students may not appreciate their significance, and so the analogies can be misunderstood or discounted. For this reason, educationalists often express concern about the use of analogies in teaching. Given the important place of analogies in the discourse of science, it is necessary that students are explicitly shown how they work, perhaps based on the structure-mapping theory we outline here. When using an analogy, the teacher should very clearly specify both its components and its limitations. Great care is required in developing an analogy to ensure that it is understood as intended and that misconceptions are minimized. This approach models the behavior of a scientist, which helps to develop student understanding of the practice of science.

The efficacy of interactive analogical models in the instruction of bond energy curves in undergraduate chemistry

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijay M. Shahani ◽  
Jodie Jenkinson
Keyword(s):  
Potential Energy ◽  
Test Evaluation ◽  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Undergraduate Chemistry ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Spring System ◽  
Written Descriptions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Mapping Theory ◽  
Insight Into

We explored analogies used for introducing students to the concept of potential energy wells. Two analogy systems were developed, a spring system and a novel system consisting of electrostatic spheres. These two, distinct analogies were housed within an interactive tool that allowed students to manipulate the analogous systems and witness changes to potential energy curves in real time. A pre-test/post-test evaluation provided insight into the impact the formulation of an analogy system can have on understanding. Students modified written descriptions to include new details in accordance to the structure-mapping theory of analogies. However, students failed to correct visual descriptions of energy wells. The failure of participants to apply key concepts after using the interactive and animated analogy systems highlights the importance of designing for education.

Grappling with racism as foundational practice of science teaching

2018 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manali J. Sheth
Keyword(s):  
Science Teaching ◽  
Practice Of Science

The Effects of Alignability on Memory

1997 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 363-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur B. Markman ◽  
Dedre Gentner
Keyword(s):  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Mapping Theory

According to structure-mapping theory, the process of comparison is one of alignment and mapping between representational structures. This process induces a focus on commonalities and alignable differences (i.e., those related to the commonalities). Nonalignable differences (i.e., those not related to the commonalities) are held to be neglected. The theory thus predicts increased focus on the corresponding information, whether these are commonalities or differences. In this article, we explore the implications of this claim for memory: Specifically, we test the prediction that alignable differences are more likely to be processed and stored than nonalignable differences. We present a study in which people made similarity comparisons between pairs of pictures and then were probed for recall. The recall probes were figures taken from the pictures and were either alignable or nonalignable differences between the pairs. The alignable differences were better memory probes than the nonalignable differences, suggesting that people were more likely to encode and store the corresponding information than the noncorresponding information.

The Sources of Children's Errors during Nonisomorphic Analogical Transfer: Script Theory and Structure Mapping Theory

1996 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen A. Pierce ◽  
R.Michelle Crain ◽  
Barry Gholson ◽  
Dereece Smither ◽  
F.Michael Rabinowitz
Keyword(s):  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Analogical Transfer ◽  
Script Theory ◽  
Mapping Theory

scholarly journals WHAT IS A GOOD PRACTICE OF SCIENCE TEACHING? SOME PATHS

2017 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 212-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Baptista
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Science Teaching ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Grade Student ◽  
9Th Grade ◽  
Physics Classes ◽  
School History ◽  
Practice Of Science

Maria is a 17 year old 9th grade student with low academic success. Her school history is marked by several stories of failure in Physics and Chemistry. Yet, the 9th grade of Maria was different; as she says, she managed to achieve “a great mark ". Therefore, what has taken Maria to find the Physics classes so good? The answer to this question leads us to another one, more complex, that can have various possible answers: After all, what is a good practice of science teaching? To answer this question requires, first of all, to think about what students are expected to learn and what competencies they should obtain in school to meet the challenges of today's society, in all its uncertainty and endless changes. Nowadays, it is widely acknowledged that to understand and act in an informed and reflected manner in such a society it is essential that students develop their critical thinking and creativity as well as problem solving, communication, digital, social, intercultural and linguistic skills.

scholarly journals The Latent Relation Mapping Engine: Algorithm and Experiments

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 615-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. D. Turney
Keyword(s):  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Structure Mapping ◽  
The Core ◽  
Relational Analysis ◽  
Analogical Mapping ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Mapping Theory ◽  
Large Corpus

Many AI researchers and cognitive scientists have argued that analogy is the core of cognition. The most influential work on computational modeling of analogy-making is Structure Mapping Theory (SMT) and its implementation in the Structure Mapping Engine (SME). A limitation of SME is the requirement for complex hand-coded representations. We introduce the Latent Relation Mapping Engine (LRME), which combines ideas from SME and Latent Relational Analysis (LRA) in order to remove the requirement for hand-coded representations. LRME builds analogical mappings between lists of words, using a large corpus of raw text to automatically discover the semantic relations among the words. We evaluate LRME on a set of twenty analogical mapping problems, ten based on scientific analogies and ten based on common metaphors. LRME achieves human-level performance on the twenty problems. We compare LRME with a variety of alternative approaches and find that they are not able to reach the same level of performance.

scholarly journals Concepção de um software para mapeamento estrutural de analogias empregadas no ensino de ciências

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (08) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilbert Viana Barbosa ◽  
Alexandre Da Silva Ferry
Keyword(s):  
Structure Mapping ◽  
Mapping Theory

O uso de analogias em sala de aula ou textualmente é uma prática de ensino muito comum, normalmente realizada de forma espontânea e pouco sistematizada. O campo de estudos sobre analogias em contextos de ensino tem revelado o potencial desse recurso de mediação didática para a aprendizagem, mas também tem apontado os riscos decorrentes do mau uso. Na perspectiva da análise de analogias e do seu emprego no ensino, Ferry e Paula (2017) introduzem um sistema de notações, respaldado pela Structure-mapping theory, de Gentner (1983), para esquematizar as correspondências entre dois domínios comparados analogicamente no contexto da Educação em Ciências. Esse sistema de notações serviu como base para a estruturação de um software capaz de auxiliar a construção do mapeamento estrutural de analogias e auxiliar o processo de análise estrutural e sistemática desse tipo de comparação, que foi concebido a partir de procedimentos comuns no desenvolvimento de software: levantamento de requisitos; construção do banco de dados; codificação e testes das funcionalidades implementadas. Assim, o presente artigo apresenta o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta digital fundamentada, denominada Sistema MAPES, que demonstrou ser capaz de otimizar o processo de mapeamento estrutural, por meio da apresentação de elementos úteis para a análise das analogias, e de contribuir para o campo de estudos. Como conclusão, o Sistema MAPES pode ser usado como um importante recurso tecnológico para auxiliar nos estudos de analogias aplicadas a contextos de ensino e de pesquisa, seja no planejamento ou na análise desse recurso mediacional.

scholarly journals A cohort of novice Danish science teachers: Background in science and argumentation about science teaching

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitte Lund Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Science Teaching ◽  
Science Teachers ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Subject Matter Knowledge ◽  
Teaching Science ◽  
Large Subgroup ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
Areas Of Concern ◽  
Danish Science ◽  
Practice Of Science

A survey on science background and argumentation about science teaching was conducted on a local cohort of newly qualified Danish science teachers. The survey was administered before the novice teachers began their first jobs in primary and lower secondary schools and focused on their reflections on specific scenarios of science teaching and themselves as teachers in various science fields. Three areas of concern were identified: There was evidence of reflection upon and argumentation for the practice of science teaching being stundent centred, but many respondents showed a tendency to focus on students’ activities as a goal in themselves, few considered what the students learned through the activities. Results furthermore suggest that the teachers’ own assessment of their subject matter knowledge in the physics field may, for a large subgroup in the cohort, affect their approach to teaching science.

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