Learning to play Chess with

1
Learning to play Chess with

• A
• A
• D
• J
• S

2
Chess and the students

• Chess was fascinating to all the students.
• The lessons were designed to engage and teach the
  beginners while improving the strategies of the
  more advanced players.
• The beginners mastered the Pawn Game and the
  more advanced looked forward to challenging both
  the teachers and their fellow students.

3
How the theme developed/didnt develop pertaining
to literary

• There were real signs of progression with
  beginners who were able to move from pawn games
  to actual games.
• More advanced players were able to solidify a lot
  of chess theory that they knew existed but
  werent able to conceptualize such as piece
  value.
• They were able to see how wide spread chess is in
  terms of art and culture.
• We were almost always able to keep a 1 on 1
  approach with the kids that allowed for
  personalized help and lessons.
• In terms of how it didnt develop, we didnt have
  as much time as we would have liked with the new
  batch of kids that arrived in the last few weeks.

4
Problems had/not had working together as
Colleagues

• Working together as colleagues involved very few
  problems. The majority of the time we were
  prepared and ready to have fun with the students.
  We worked as a team very well by listening to
  each others opinions.
• As a team, we came together as one to make sure
  the students were being taught to play Chess. We
  took turns each round playing Chess with the
  students. Those of us who were experts at playing
  chess were paired with the students who knew how
  to play Chess and vice versa.

5
How problems were solved working together as
Colleagues

• The only problem we encountered working as
  colleagues was the ability to come up with
  different activities for our TA group besides
  just playing chess. This was solved by listening
  to several group members ideas and by doing some
  critical thinking. As a team, we came up with fun
  activities such as watching scenes from Harry
  Potter playing chess and filling out fun
  worksheets.

6
Advice for future teachers

• The focus of this course seemed to be that
  motivation precedes learning. Find some middle
  ground (3rd space of interaction) between
  yourselves and the students where the students
  can be excited about what they are doing.
  Literacy is broad enough for you to find a way to
  incorporate significant learning into that space.