An example of an analogy drawing on scientific knowledge (where it is assumed the science is already familiar to the audience):
"If some prerequisite learning is missing, then it needs to introduced before any progress will be made; but, if it is present, the teacher simply needs to make the connection more explicit. If a link is made with an existing alternative conception, then that conception needs to be addressed, but if a link is made with irrelevant material, it is only the unhelpful link, and not what it is linked to, that needs attention.
A biochemical analogy may be helpful to some readers. We might imagine the learner's cognitive system as protein structures inside a cell, and the teaching as like some molecule that is intended to bind to a particular site on one of the proteins – a ligand.
We can consider things that could go wrong:
- The target protein is missing, so there is no substrate for the ligand to bind to (or the protein is mutated in such a way that there is no functioning binding site for the ligand);
- The ligand diffuses to a different part of the cell, and never comes into contact with the protein;
- The target protein has a mutation, and although the ligand is able to bind, it is strained by the abnormal conformation of the binding site;
- The ligand comes into contact with a molecule of a different protein with a matching binding site before it reaches the target protein."
Read examples of scientific analogies
Many examples of science analogies are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
This analogy is discussed in more detail at 'Learning from one's own teaching analogy'
