Authors
Dr. Fidan Korkut, Hacettepe U., and Dr Dean W. Owen, METU, Turkey

Icebreaker
Participants talk about what they want to be

Purpose of presentation
To exlore the importance of identifying areas or broad fields of interest and ability.

Rationale (why topic is important)
In Turkey, every ninth grade high school student is required to identify one of six fields in which he/she will concentrate their academic preparation during high school. This choice will determine not only the emphasis in high school study but will determine which area of the national university admission exam they will be permitted to take. Essentially this choice, made in the ninth year of school, will have long and far reaching consequences for every Turkish student. There are six fields: Sciences, social sciences, Turkish-mathematic, Forgein language, Art, and Sports.

Learning Objectives (1-3)
Participants will acquire an increased insight in the fields of choice and the importance of reasoned selection.

Materials (what materials will participants need)
Pencil, Field Choice Map Form

Participants (who are your participants; i.e., CDF students)
High school 9th grade

Setting (classroom, group seating, etc)
It can be used in a classroom with a group or individually in a counseling session.

Time Required
It can take total 40 minutes: Just 10 minutes to complete the scale, but sharing and discussion the results can take longer.

Lecturette (brief - key points)
Talking about how field choice can effect our future, career choice, how important to know relationship between our interest and ability and perceived success.

Exercise (brief)
Participants are asked to record their interest in the 6 basic fields on a 10 point scale horizontal scale. The process is then repeated for ability/achievement on a parallel scale. Each field on the interest scale is then joined by a line to the same field on the ability/achievement scale. This process highlights complementary and conflicting patterns of interest and ability in the 6 foundation fields. Click HERE to view example.

Assessment of Learning Objectives
Feedback from the participants

Discussion
Participants are guided through the process of interpreting their Field interest/ability map to assist in identifying likely patterns for success and likely patterns that may contribute to failure.