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Many college professors have found that a good percentage of today's students are poorer leamers than theirpredecessors. Now, more than ever before, students must be taught in a manner that will connect each topic with the students' own lives. The material must be taught in an active way to keep the students' interest. l%us, to motivate and aid students in understanding a topic, we must use analogies for leaming and apply them with active teaching wherever possible.When students are first presented with the concept of electrical charge, they can get a 'yeel" for the,force of attraction using the force of gravity as a model. Throw a book up in the air and ask the class, "Why does it fir11 down?." They will reply that it is due to "gravity." What is "gravity?"-a force of attraction between "unlike" charges and between the "opposite" poles of magnets. From the forces of attraction between "unlike" charges and "opposite" magnetic poles, one can then discuss the forces of rqpulsion experienced by "like" charges and "similar" magneticpoles. It is a good idea to demonstrate the forces of attraction and repulsion with magnets even though the students know how magnets behave because "seeing '' gives even more reinforcement to the leaming. This paper will discuss other analogies fiir physical quantities such as work, voltage, current, and resistance as well as analogies for series and parallel connections, and Kirchhoff 's current and voltage laws. Suggestions will be given as to how to enliven the presentation of the material to enhance the learning erperience.it cannot be done at all. There are many sociological t h e ories to explain this phenomenon. However, the topic of this paper is not why this occurs, but what to do about it.The solution is to teach the topic by connecting it with the students' own lives [ 1,2]. The material must be taught in an active way to keep the students' interest [3]. To motivate and aid students in understanding a concept, it is very effective to use analogies of that concept [4] or mental models [5] in explaining it. This should be accomplished with active teaching wherever possible. Electric ChargeWhen students are first presented with the concept of electric charge, they can get a "feel" for the force of attraction using the force of gravity as a model. Throw a book up in the air and ask the class, "Why does it fall down?." They will reply that it is due to "gravity." What is "gravity?" -a force of attraction between two masses. Once that concept becomes clear, it then can be related to the forces of attraction between "unlikey' charges and between the "opposite" poles of magnets. From the forces of attraction between "unlike" charges and "opposite" magnetic poles, one can then discuss the forces of repulsion experienced by "like" charges and "similar" magnetic poles. It is a good idea to demonstrate the forces of attraction and repulsion with magnets even though the students know how magnets behave because "seeing" gives even more reinforcement to the learning.

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