Brandi Gibson Analogies help the student understand the concept on a different level in a different way. They are effective when they are aligned with the experiences of the audience. Teachers can use this when they use the compare and contract strategies and help the student "think outside of the box."
I, personally, use analogies to help me learn and remember new information, so I also use them with students. Sometimes I use Venn Diagrams so students can see the similarities and differences of two distinctly different concepts. Students can list the differences in each circle and then see the similarities where the circles overlap. For instance, when comparing characters from one book to characters in another book. I’ve also used with protagonist and antagonist in a story.
I still use a type of Venn diagram when comparing the pros and cons of some decision I need to make as an adult. The students would be able to use those to compare two things all over life.
I think that using analogies is a good way to get students to understand information. Like the example in the book, where the student created a lesson for his peer. He used animals and compared them to something the student would know. This helped the other student then be able to remember the description of the part they were talking about. I think it is important to show the connection between things in a students life. Just like showing them the relevance of the concepts they are being taught. I still use connections when I am learning a new concept even as an adult, or when I act like an adult.
I agree with you that I think it is easier for students to understand something if it is related to something they already know. Even as an adult if I don't have a connection to a topic, then I won't retain the information as well.
We all relate new things to what we know or what our interests are. It makes sense to do that for students, especially if it's a concept they need to remember and really understand.
We all seek connections between what we already know and what we are just learning. For this reason, analogies are things we use more than we realize. If we could step back and teach our students in the same ways in which we learn, I think we would all be better off.
In my pull out English class I use analogies with students when we read stories. Sometimes they make a compare/contrast diagram while other times I will take their past work (notes, character sketches, drawings, writings, etc) and use it to draw on something that they can relate to in the current story.
In my pull out math class, I always go a refer back to a concept that they already know and build on it. I often tell my students, when it comes to math, that I am not teaching them anything they don’t already know, I am just showing a different way to do it. I like to say this because math is a very weak area for my students and it helps to give them confidence in their abilities.
I use compare/contrast alot too. I use Double Bubble Maps from Thinking Maps and Venn Diagrams. I have also used T charts when there is little to compare/contrast. Diagrams are a great visual!!!
I use analogies often in my reading classes. Since I have my students for several yaers I know alot of about them and can use their interests and their life to make those connections. I have also noticed that students make their own analogies to process information- I love that! They are taking charge of their own learning. For example- my 8th graders just finished Number the Stars and the Personal Response question at the end of the book dealt with human nature. At first they did not understand that concept so I made a T chart. We identified optimistic and pessimistic events in the story and then related that to current events. What are optimistic and pessimistic current events, either locally or nationally? When we organized ideas and connected past events to current events they were better able to answer the question. That was rather elaborate, most of my analogies are verbal connections that don't take much time to work through. Either way analogies are very important for assimilating information.
Analogies require us to make connections between concepts. Sometimes the connections are easy (apple to orange), but sometimes they require us to think harder and reach farther for those connections or similarities, such as the example in the book of cells to a factory. Using analogies requires us to connect concepts and sometimes reorganize the information in the storage areas of our brains. I have been talking to students about metaphors. This would be a great next step that I hadn’t considered until reading this chapter.
Metaphors are a great example! They are so difficult to get because they are asking you to compare things. We become so used to them that we forget to break things down to really understand what is being said.
I love analogies to promote concept learning and organization because it can be used to demonstrate overall comprehension of what something is/does and its relationship to other things. We stress analogies in High School because of the ACT/SAT Prep aspect, as well as the ASVAB. They offer critical thinking skills that can be beneficial later in life. For example: when you're baking, what can you substitute for a thickening agent? If I want something sweet without the added sugar, what can I use? Etc. It can even be extended to geometric concepts where you are comparing shapes and sizes. It is a skill that carries much weight and transferability - something our students desperately need.
I hadn't even thought of the importance of analogies during the ACT! But they are definitely in there and it is definitely important that we teach the kids and prepare them for those harder analogies.
How can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? What do analogies do? I remember when Gary Burkhart was with HPEC. I admired his knack for analogies that could make you think about things in a new light and simplify complex concepts. Analogies help students scaffold information, linking new ideas to things they already know. I've see teachers using Venn diagrams, double bubble maps, and the compare and contrast map from readwritethink.org to address the compare/contrast standards.
Analogies help students better understand things that may be new or unfamiliar to them. I love the book's example of a platypus's nose bill is like a shovel for digging. Most young kids have never seen a platypus so using this analogy would help them picture the platypus using his long nose to dig. What a great way to teach kids new things using things they already know.
Anytime new knowledge can be linked to something a student already knows it helps solidify the information. Using visual aids to help students make these connections is another great way to have students identify similarities and differences. A few years ago Thinking Maps was big in the Ulysses district and every teacher had various maps taped to their walls. Sadly, this has been a passing phase, and I don't see them much in classrooms now.
Jan, Thinking Maps may be the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater. The minute something new comes along or new buzz words come along, some really good concepts are discarded to make room for things that might be good, but not necessarily better.
Just give it a couple years… Thinking maps will cycle back around with a new name and some new, fancy packaging, and everything will be right in the world once again :-)
Analogies can be effective in teaching because they use imagery to make a connection between what students know and what they need to learn. In this, it helps to know your students and the experiences they have had. When thinking about analogies, I think of parables in the Bible. For example, when we scatter grain, the grain that lands in fertile ground has a better chance of growing than when it lands on rocky ground. This might be taken literally to describe good farming practices or it might be taken metaphorically to mean the word of God growing more easily in a willing heart or as a way to explain the "goldilocks zone" in which certain planets are more capable of sustaining life than others. The great thing about these stories is that they are simple, but can also be used to describe complex thoughts. The human brain is wired to remember stories and to create imagery. Analogies and the imagery they contain help us make sense of the universe. They create visuals that students can use to organize and categorize information to be learned and, in that, make the information memorable.
Analogies help to transfer information by linking something previously learned to another similar, new concept. I remember using them in college to help me try to make sense of more complicated concepts that I didn’t really understand initially, or when trying to remember certain concepts when studying for tests. I don’t think I’ve ever used analogies when working with students, but I feel like teachers probably do this a lot more frequently without even realizing it. In my mind, I feel like if a student didn’t understand something, probably one of the first things you’d do would be to break it down and relate it to something else they already know.
How can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? Analogies help promote concept learning and concept organization by helping relate the material learned to something else that we may understand better. What do analogies do? Analogies help use to relate information to other things and to help us organize the relevance of the information.
The book states that analogies are like coat hangers in a closet. They help students drape new knowledge over old knowledge which helps them retrieve it later. I thought this was a perfect description of what an analogy is and what it does for students. Analogies help connect new information to old information by making it relatable to the student. This helps promote concept learning and organization by connecting the new information to the student's world. It helps to transfer the knowledge.
Who doesn't love analogies? Our brains love to make connections; to find new thoughts and new concepts and understand them in comparison to something well known and comfortable. As the book stated, analogies are like coat hangers or hooks with which learners can hang new concepts on. This is a great analogy (with clever timing)! We can promote student learning, understanding, and interest by using analogies to bring new ideas into their worlds. Like the book pointed out, students are very good at coming up with analogies too. I love to get my students going on trying to come up with analogies. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. No matter how bad the analogies are that we come up with, we are thinking about the material in deeper ways and trying to get our brains wrapped around an idea. Analogies make us find connections and think about a topic from countless angles.
How can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? What do analogies do? Anolgies are a great tool to use in connecting new material to previously learned material. When students are able to make these connection it helps cement it into their brains. I love how the book uses an analogy to describe analogies. I have found that analogies are great ways to introduce a new subject. If I can compare it to something previously learned by students it allows them to think back to that material and make connection to the new material.
Brandi Gibson
ReplyDeleteAnalogies help the student understand the concept on a different level in a different way. They are effective when they are aligned with the experiences of the audience. Teachers can use this when they use the compare and contract strategies and help the student "think outside of the box."
When students "think outside the box," and apply what they know, it's amazing at the creativity I see.
DeleteI, personally, use analogies to help me learn and remember new information, so I also use them with students. Sometimes I use Venn Diagrams so students can see the similarities and differences of two distinctly different concepts. Students can list the differences in each circle and then see the similarities where the circles overlap. For instance, when comparing characters from one book to characters in another book. I’ve also used with protagonist and antagonist in a story.
ReplyDeleteI still use a type of Venn diagram when comparing the pros and cons of some decision I need to make as an adult. The students would be able to use those to compare two things all over life.
DeleteVenn diagrams are great ways to compare and organize information to help us retain it and make it relevant.
DeleteI like using Venn diagrams with students too. It seems like when they can see the information visually, it helps them to understand better.
DeleteI think that using analogies is a good way to get students to understand information. Like the example in the book, where the student created a lesson for his peer. He used animals and compared them to something the student would know. This helped the other student then be able to remember the description of the part they were talking about. I think it is important to show the connection between things in a students life. Just like showing them the relevance of the concepts they are being taught. I still use connections when I am learning a new concept even as an adult, or when I act like an adult.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that I think it is easier for students to understand something if it is related to something they already know. Even as an adult if I don't have a connection to a topic, then I won't retain the information as well.
DeleteWe all relate new things to what we know or what our interests are. It makes sense to do that for students, especially if it's a concept they need to remember and really understand.
DeleteWe all seek connections between what we already know and what we are just learning. For this reason, analogies are things we use more than we realize. If we could step back and teach our students in the same ways in which we learn, I think we would all be better off.
DeleteIn my pull out English class I use analogies with students when we read stories. Sometimes they make a compare/contrast diagram while other times I will take their past work (notes, character sketches, drawings, writings, etc) and use it to draw on something that they can relate to in the current story.
ReplyDeleteIn my pull out math class, I always go a refer back to a concept that they already know and build on it. I often tell my students, when it comes to math, that I am not teaching them anything they don’t already know, I am just showing a different way to do it. I like to say this because math is a very weak area for my students and it helps to give them confidence in their abilities.
I use compare/contrast alot too. I use Double Bubble Maps from Thinking Maps and Venn Diagrams. I have also used T charts when there is little to compare/contrast. Diagrams are a great visual!!!
DeleteI use analogies often in my reading classes. Since I have my students for several yaers I know alot of about them and can use their interests and their life to make those connections. I have also noticed that students make their own analogies to process information- I love that! They are taking charge of their own learning.
ReplyDeleteFor example- my 8th graders just finished Number the Stars and the Personal Response question at the end of the book dealt with human nature. At first they did not understand that concept so I made a T chart. We identified optimistic and pessimistic events in the story and then related that to current events. What are optimistic and pessimistic current events, either locally or nationally? When we organized ideas and connected past events to current events they were better able to answer the question. That was rather elaborate, most of my analogies are verbal connections that don't take much time to work through. Either way analogies are very important for assimilating information.
Analogies require us to make connections between concepts. Sometimes the connections are easy (apple to orange), but sometimes they require us to think harder and reach farther for those connections or similarities, such as the example in the book of cells to a factory.
ReplyDeleteUsing analogies requires us to connect concepts and sometimes reorganize the information in the storage areas of our brains. I have been talking to students about metaphors. This would be a great next step that I hadn’t considered until reading this chapter.
Metaphors are a great example! They are so difficult to get because they are asking you to compare things. We become so used to them that we forget to break things down to really understand what is being said.
DeleteMetaphors require that little bit of extra "outside of the box thinking" that your students enjoy, too.
DeleteI love analogies to promote concept learning and organization because it can be used to demonstrate overall comprehension of what something is/does and its relationship to other things. We stress analogies in High School because of the ACT/SAT Prep aspect, as well as the ASVAB. They offer critical thinking skills that can be beneficial later in life. For example: when you're baking, what can you substitute for a thickening agent? If I want something sweet without the added sugar, what can I use? Etc. It can even be extended to geometric concepts where you are comparing shapes and sizes. It is a skill that carries much weight and transferability - something our students desperately need.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't even thought of the importance of analogies during the ACT! But they are definitely in there and it is definitely important that we teach the kids and prepare them for those harder analogies.
DeleteHow can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? What do analogies do?
ReplyDeleteI remember when Gary Burkhart was with HPEC. I admired his knack for analogies that could make you think about things in a new light and simplify complex concepts. Analogies help students scaffold information, linking new ideas to things they already know. I've see teachers using Venn diagrams, double bubble maps, and the compare and contrast map from readwritethink.org to address the compare/contrast standards.
Analogies help students better understand things that may be new or unfamiliar to them. I love the book's example of a platypus's nose bill is like a shovel for digging. Most young kids have never seen a platypus so using this analogy would help them picture the platypus using his long nose to dig. What a great way to teach kids new things using things they already know.
ReplyDeleteIt's so important to link new learning to a student's prior knowledge, but often difficult to accomplish.
DeleteAnytime new knowledge can be linked to something a student already knows it helps solidify the information. Using visual aids to help students make these connections is another great way to have students identify similarities and differences. A few years ago Thinking Maps was big in the Ulysses district and every teacher had various maps taped to their walls. Sadly, this has been a passing phase, and I don't see them much in classrooms now.
ReplyDeleteJan, Thinking Maps may be the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater. The minute something new comes along or new buzz words come along, some really good concepts are discarded to make room for things that might be good, but not necessarily better.
DeleteJust give it a couple years… Thinking maps will cycle back around with a new name and some new, fancy packaging, and everything will be right in the world once again :-)
DeleteAnalogies can be effective in teaching because they use imagery to make a connection between what students know and what they need to learn. In this, it helps to know your students and the experiences they have had. When thinking about analogies, I think of parables in the Bible. For example, when we scatter grain, the grain that lands in fertile ground has a better chance of growing than when it lands on rocky ground. This might be taken literally to describe good farming practices or it might be taken metaphorically to mean the word of God growing more easily in a willing heart or as a way to explain the "goldilocks zone" in which certain planets are more capable of sustaining life than others. The great thing about these stories is that they are simple, but can also be used to describe complex thoughts. The human brain is wired to remember stories and to create imagery. Analogies and the imagery they contain help us make sense of the universe. They create visuals that students can use to organize and categorize information to be learned and, in that, make the information memorable.
ReplyDeleteAnalogies help to transfer information by linking something previously learned to another similar, new concept. I remember using them in college to help me try to make sense of more complicated concepts that I didn’t really understand initially, or when trying to remember certain concepts when studying for tests. I don’t think I’ve ever used analogies when working with students, but I feel like teachers probably do this a lot more frequently without even realizing it. In my mind, I feel like if a student didn’t understand something, probably one of the first things you’d do would be to break it down and relate it to something else they already know.
ReplyDeleteHow can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? Analogies help promote concept learning and concept organization by helping relate the material learned to something else that we may understand better. What do analogies do? Analogies help use to relate information to other things and to help us organize the relevance of the information.
ReplyDeleteThe book states that analogies are like coat hangers in a closet. They help students drape new knowledge over old knowledge which helps them retrieve it later. I thought this was a perfect description of what an analogy is and what it does for students. Analogies help connect new information to old information by making it relatable to the student. This helps promote concept learning and organization by connecting the new information to the student's world. It helps to transfer the knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThats a great point they help with the transfer of knowledge because students are able to make connections.
DeleteWho doesn't love analogies? Our brains love to make connections; to find new thoughts and new concepts and understand them in comparison to something well known and comfortable. As the book stated, analogies are like coat hangers or hooks with which learners can hang new concepts on. This is a great analogy (with clever timing)! We can promote student learning, understanding, and interest by using analogies to bring new ideas into their worlds. Like the book pointed out, students are very good at coming up with analogies too. I love to get my students going on trying to come up with analogies. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. No matter how bad the analogies are that we come up with, we are thinking about the material in deeper ways and trying to get our brains wrapped around an idea. Analogies make us find connections and think about a topic from countless angles.
ReplyDeleteHow can you use analogies to promote concept learning and concept organization? What do analogies do?
ReplyDeleteAnolgies are a great tool to use in connecting new material to previously learned material. When students are able to make these connection it helps cement it into their brains. I love how the book uses an analogy to describe analogies.
I have found that analogies are great ways to introduce a new subject. If I can compare it to something previously learned by students it allows them to think back to that material and make connection to the new material.