An example of an analogy drawing upon a scientific idea:
"The left-hand part of the figure shows a triangle of ideal learning types. One apex of the triangle is labelled rote learning – where a person learns some isolated fact without connecting it to any other ideas. This is contrasted with meaningful learning where what is learnt is integrated into a complex structure of ideas (represented by the side of the triangle opposite the point of rote learning). There are two ideal types of learning here, where learning is simply absorbed into a pattern of ideas it fits perfectly (sometimes called assimilation) as opposed to where what is learnt has to be made to fit, to be accommodated, by a major restructuring of prior thinking.
The point of the triangle is to suggest that actual learning is nearly always somewhat linked to prior learning (not entirely rote, but not integrated perfectly with other potentially relevant ideas) and that new learning generally modifies prior thinking somewhat, although seldom revolutionises it. So, the ideal types, the apices, are useful referents, but real learning is normally located somewhere in the triangle. The bonding triangle maps onto the learning triangle; that there are ideal types of bonding map onto the suggestion that there are ideal types of learning; and the general rule that bonding is characterised somewhere within the bonding triangle maps on to how learning generally falls somewhere within the 'learning triangle'. This learning triangle may then be seen as analogous to the bonding triangle familiar to chemists. We might therefore be able to conjecture useful features of learning from our knowledge of bonding. Meaningful learning is often like polar bonding – at neither of the extremes of perfectly fitting, nor completely disrupting, prior learning.
Any such device is capable of being misunderstood unless clearly explained. For example, any reader who spent time trying to work out why rote learning mapped specifically onto metallic bonding (rather than perhaps covalent bonding) would be over-interpreting this particular analogy."
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