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Metaphor and Analogy in Science Education

  • Book
  • © 2006

Overview

  • Breadth of research applications of metaphor and analogy in science education
  • Inclusion of practical applications of metaphor and analogy in science education
  • International contributors, including both outstanding scholars in the field and teachers
  • Brings together research in the field of metaphor and analogy in science education for the first time
  • Provides content accessible to and of value to teachers, researchers and student teachers

Part of the book series: Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education (CTISE, volume 30)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

Years ago a primary teacher told me about a great series of lessons she had just had. The class had visited rock pools on the seashore, and when she asked them about their observations they talked about: it was like a factory, it was like a church, it was like a garden, it was like our kitchen at breakfast time, etc. Each student’s analogy could be elaborated, and these analogies provided her with strongly engaged students and a great platform from which to develop their learning about biological diversity and interdependence. In everyday life we learn so many things by comparing and contrasting. The use of analogies and metaphors is important in science itself and their use in teaching science seems a natural extension, but textbooks with their own sparse logic, do not help teachers or students. David Ausubel in the 1960s had advocated the use of ‘advance organisers’ to introduce the teaching of conceptual material in the sciences, and some of these had an analogical character. However, research on the value of this idea was cumbersome and indecisive, and it ceased after just a few studies. In the 1980s research into children’s conceptions of scientific phenomena and concepts really burgeoned, and it was soon followed by an exploration of a new set of pedagogical strategies that recognised a student in a science class is much more than a tabula rasa.

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Technology Sydney, Australia

    Peter J. Aubusson

  • Central Queensland University, Australia

    Allan G. Harrison

  • Queensland University of Technology, Australia

    Stephen M. Ritchie

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Metaphor and Analogy in Science Education

  • Editors: Peter J. Aubusson, Allan G. Harrison, Stephen M. Ritchie

  • Series Title: Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3830-5

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-3829-7Published: 01 December 2005

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-3830-3Published: 28 June 2006

  • Series ISSN: 1878-0482

  • Series E-ISSN: 1878-0784

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 210

  • Topics: Science Education

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