Teaching Chess - Using Demonstration Boards

If you are teaching a chess class, you might want to get hold of a demonstration board. These can be ordered from the USCF website store, and cost around $70.00. There are different kinds, some have the pockets with slots in the board for the pieces to stick out of, and some have clear plastic covering over the squares, where you place the pieces and they can be seen through the transparent pockets. There are much more expensive demo boards you can buy. I have seen big heavy boards that are rather cumbersome. You might want to use these if you don't have to lug them around. These have magnetic pieces and it is kind of nice to be able to just slap them on the squares without having to fit them in the slots. The advantage to using demo boards is that it gives the class a controlled atmosphere and one focus to look at while they listen and watch the lecture. Often kids will want to run up to the board to move the pieces themselves, they get some kind of thrill out of that. It can create chaos if you let them all run up to the board, but on the other hand it can be an incentive to pay attention if they know they might get to go up there to the board to move the pieces. This definately creates the kinesthetic experience that can enhance learning.

Another way to increase the kinesthetic or hands on experience of learning while teaching chess is having each child set up a chess set in front of him, if you have enough sets to do that. Or you can have the kids sit in pairs, one on each side of the board, or in small groups. You can use what I call chess bingo as a teaching tool. Chess bingo simply means you call out the name and color of the piece and the name of the square and have the children put the pieces on those squares. You can expand this and call out the moves to a game and have the children make the moves themselves. This can really expand learning. The kids will sometimes have trouble figuring out the moves, for example if you call out Bishop to c4, they might try to put the wrong bishop on that square, picking up the piece and you can immediately tell which kids are having trouble placing the bishop on c4 by the confused looks they have and the fact that they have picked up the wrong bishop. Then you can explain to them which bishop to use. Same with the knights. But it gets easier, and you just have to go a little slower when you teach this way, so you might not get as much of the lesson plan done, however, the fact that they are learning how to identify the pieces and squares too, in addition to the lesson, creates an integrated learning experience, in addition to an active classroom that gets less bored and distracted during the lesson.