Build a bridging analogy from what they know to what they don’t
Map the new concept onto a structure the audience already understands.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Map the new concept onto a structure the audience already understands.
- Why it works: An analogy transfers the relational structure of a familiar domain onto the unfamiliar one, allowing the learner to borrow inferences they have already built. For a cursed-by-knowledge expert, constructing the analogy forces them to identify what makes their concept structurally unique — which is exactly the distinction a novice needs. The failure mode is a surface analogy that imports the wrong inferences.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Using the analogy that is easiest for you to produce (one already in your expert vocabulary) rather than one built from what the learner actually knows.
Why it works
An analogy transfers the relational structure of a familiar domain onto the unfamiliar one, allowing the learner to borrow inferences they have already built. For a cursed-by-knowledge expert, constructing the analogy forces them to identify what makes their concept structurally unique — which is exactly the distinction a novice needs. The failure mode is a surface analogy that imports the wrong inferences.
How to do it
- 1Name the unfamiliar concept and its three or four key structural relationships.
- 2Ask: what everyday system has the same pattern of relationships?
- 3State the mapping explicitly: "X is like Y in that both have [shared structure]."
- 4Also state where the analogy breaks down — this is not optional.
What the evidence says
ObservationalStructural analogy research (Gentner) shows that explaining by analogy speeds acquisition of novel concepts when the analogy shares relational structure rather than surface similarity. Effect is well documented in physics and mathematics instruction.
Honest caveat: Analogies can mislead when the wrong features transfer; always naming the breakdown point is not optional — it is the safeguard.
- — Gentner & Holyoak (1997), reasoning and learning by analogy, American Psychologist
Common mistake
Using the analogy that is easiest for you to produce (one already in your expert vocabulary) rather than one built from what the learner actually knows.
IX Coach asks about domains you are already familiar with before selecting an analogy, so the bridge starts from your side of the river rather than from the expert’s.
Practice this with IX Coach →