The document discusses the role of analogies in learning, emphasizing that they allow individuals to understand new concepts by connecting them to familiar ideas. It outlines the limitations of analogies and the need for them to be tailored to the learner's existing knowledge, comparing them to bridges that must be custom-built for effective use. It also differentiates the roles of teachers and designers in constructing these analogies, with teachers focusing on individual users and designers aiming to create accessible analogies for broader audiences.

1. Building effective analogies
Ajay Ganapathy

2. Analogies
• According to Schema Theory, people
understand new, unfamiliar things in terms of
old, familiar things,
• They do this by constructing analogies that
bridge the gap between the unfamiliar and
familiar.

3. The limits of analogies
• Analogies are a lot like bridges. There are
limits to how far they can stretch, and they will
collapse under excessive tension.
• The more tenuous an analogy, the less weight
a learner can place on it before it falls
through.

4. Native understanding
• Bridges are only a pathway to a destination.
Similarly, analogies are only a means to an
end. In this case, that end is a comprehensive
mental model that gives learners a sense of
familiarity to the concepts they are learning.
• We can refer to this end as a "native
understanding"

5. Building effective
analogies
• A bridge is only useful if it can be crossed.
• Every analogy has to be custom-built to the
user's schema.

6. Teachers and
designers
• Teachers build a separate bridge for each user.
Each bridge is built to reach out to the exact
schema of the user. Teachers then lead each user
across the bridge.
• Designers build a single bridge that is accessible
to most users. They leave the job of reaching out
to each individual user to the teacher.
• Designers make the job of the teacher easier.

7. Making one analogy for
everyone.
• Who is the lowest common denominator in
your target audience?
• What does this person know?
• What does this person not know?
• What does this person think they know?