Analogy-based Instruction for Effective Teaching of Abstract Concepts in Computer Science

In the analogy-based learning method we map a concept that is being learned to a well-understood concept. An analogy is mainly useful when learners lack prior knowledge of the topic being learned. Computer Science (CS) is a subject whose concepts tend to be highly abstract and therefore difficult for undergraduate students to understand. Analogy-based instruction can greatly reduce a student’s burden of learning these abstract CS concepts. Role of analogy in teaching CS topics has not been adequately explored. In this paper we discuss analogy-based instruction in computer science and its advantages. Over the last decade we have developed analogies for a large number of difficult CS concepts and extensively used them in the classroom at our institution. We list these analogies and as an illustration discuss one of them (from the subfield of operating systems) in detail. We also present the evaluation of our analogy-based instruction method. Our results indicate that our techniques are quite effective in improving student learning outcomes.