Reflection+on+Yüce+College+Conference+by+ZEYNEP+DENİZ


 *  ZEYNEP DENİZ **
 *  Yüce  College Conference   **

The session given by Dr Annamaria Pinter at Yuce schools’ conference has a lot of beneficial information for me. The topic of the lesson is differentiated learning- links with autonomy and teaching strategies. I have never heard this term before the conference. 3 main things highlighted in the session are the definition of the differentiation, how to apply it and the definition of autonomy.

Firstly, differentiation means different level of competence, interests, needs, learning styles. According to differentiation, giving different tasks to different students and giving them a right to choose their tasks are very important. When students choose their activities, they learn to take responsibility of the activity. Secondly, she uses different activities to show us how to apply differentiation in our lessons. It is very beneficial for us because we learn different teaching strategies. Probably, when I become a teacher, I will use these activities in my lessons. They are easy to apply all levels and effective as well. She teaches us “poetry” activity that is the one I like most. In this activity, students are supposed to write a short poem about an object or a word by using two adjective, three verbs, one sentence and one noun. All students can define what they want and this shows us that there is a right to choice in this activity. Also, they can practice it by writing several poems and they use different level of language. These are the main requirements of the differentiation. Thirdly, autonomy refers to understand what learning is, understand resource, and understand how to evaluate outcomes. They are all related to autonomy. Another aspect that I like is the way she gives presentation. She is very calm and friendly. She does not make us bored. She wants us to do activities to take our attention. She explains every term clearly with the help of the creative activities. However, she is not an energetic speaker; she explains everything in the same place. I want her to walk around the stage and be more energetic. As conclusion, I like the session very much and I will use the information that I learn from the conference in my future lessons. The most important thing that I will take into consideration while preparing my lesson plans is that students can learn from others, by participation, when motivated, if they choose their tasks and when they try again.