演讲题目：Children's Spontaneous Use of Analogies during Collaborative Discussions

 

Professor of Education and Psychology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Director of the Center for the Study of Reading

Professor at Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University

President of China Children’s Books

 

 

Richard C. Anderson is an American educational psychologist who has published influential research on children's reading, vocabulary growth, and story discussions that promote thinking. He is the director of the Center for the Study of Reading, and a professor of education and psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also professor at Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and president of China Children’s Books.

Anderson was born in River Falls, Wisconsin, and was educated at Harvard University. He has served as president of the American Educational Research Association and was chairman of the National Academy of Education—National Institute of Education Commission on Reading. At the University of Illinois, Anderson has been named University Scholar, received the Outstanding Mentor Award for excellence in mentoring graduate students, and received a Distinguished Career Teaching Award. His other honors include twice being named winner of the Palmer O. Johnson Award, the American Educational Research Association's annual award for an outstanding educational research paper; election to the National Academy of Education…. In 2006, Anderson received the Sylvia Scribner Award from the American Educational Research Association for current research that represents a significant advance in understanding of learning and instruction. 

With colleagues, Anderson has published 200 books and articles, notably Becoming a Nation of Readers, one of the most widely read books of all time in the field of literacy. Anderson's current research interests include approaches to classroom discussion that promote children’s social and intellectual development; comparative analysis of learning to read Chinese and English; and reading and public policy.

Children’s use of analogy was examined during peer-led small-group discussions using an approach called Collaborative Reasoning. Fifty-four discussions from 18 discussion groups in 6 fourth-grade classrooms were transcribed and searched for analogies. A total of 277 analogies were identified and further coded for structure, function, novelty, explicitness, and digression. Children generated more relational analogies than surface analogies. Many of the relational analogies matched in surface features and seemed more comprehensible to children than abstract analogies. Relational analogies with shared surface features had the potential to trigger purely relational analogies, showing a trend of progressive alignment. Use of analogy was found to snowball throughout discussions. Analogies, once generated, tended to be further elaborated by the same analogizer as well as other students in the group. Multiple rhetorical moves, particularly moves involving elaboration and counterargument, were stimulated by analogies.