Analogies are a powerful method in a teacher’s toolkit. They allow children to use their real-life experience to support the construction of new abstract knowledge. As such, they are particularly useful for teaching science concepts that often describe forces and structures that are invisible to the eye. In this presentation, I will first describe how children learn with analogies from a cognitive science perspective. Using this knowledge, we will discuss how best to introduce analogies when teaching, how using analogies can lead to misconceptions if used incorrectly and how to support children when they struggle with this powerful teaching method.
