Abstract:

Didactic analogies are frequently used in physics to help students learn new concepts. The instructor uses a familiar situation to facilitate the understanding and learning of a new one. In this paper some new, and some well known, analogies are discussed regarding their pedagogical value in college physics for engineers. In light of modern theories of metaphor and analogy, which describe these concepts as “cross-domain mappings in the conceptual system” of a person, an analysis is made of the chosen analogies, to show the way in which relations in their base domains help the student understand important relations in the target domains. It is emphasized that the relatively large number of relations explained by the analogies included in this paper, and the considerable familiarity that college students usually have with the objects in the base domains of them, are major causes for the success that these analogies indeed have as teaching tools.

Keywords:

Didactic analogies, analogies in physics, college physics learning.