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| | An Hour in Our Classes
Each class is structured the same way in order for the students to become accustomed to the routine. That routine includes traditional chess games, variants, puzzles, and lessons all of which are geared toward the specific tactics being taught that day. Our classes are kept to an hour so our students stay engaged, and at the same time, our classes are kept at a high energy level so that the class routine is always something to look forward to. |
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| | An Hour in Our Classes
Each class is structured the same way in order for the students to become accustomed to the routine. That routine includes traditional chess games, variants, puzzles, and lessons all of which are geared toward the specific tactics being taught that day. Our classes are kept to an hour so our students stay engaged, and at the same time, our classes are kept at a high energy level so that the class routine is always something to look forward to. |
Routine
Each Iron Rooks class is broken into three sections.
In the beginning of class, the students come in, set-up boards, and begin playing warm-up games. During the warm-up games, the instructor walks around the classroom assisting students with particular strategies, highlighting available tactics, and answering general questions.
In the middle of class, the instructor divides the students into subgroups and provides lessons accordingly.
After the lessons, the students go back to playing chess but now play chess variants, team games, and solve puzzles. Before dismissal, the instructors hand out practice sheets for that day's lesson and ask students chess trivia questions that recap the lesson key points. |
| | An Hour in Our Classes
Each class is structured the same way in order for the students to become accustomed to the routine. That routine includes traditional chess games, variants, puzzles, and lessons all of which are geared toward the specific tactics being taught that day. Our classes are kept to an hour so our students stay engaged, and at the same time, our classes are kept at a high energy level so that the class routine is always something to look forward to. |
Puzzles
Iron Rooks practice sheets have twelve puzzles on one side that are all based around a specific chess tactic. On the other side, the practice sheets have a recap of the lesson that pertains to that same specific chess tactic.
This design was specifically created so that parents can understand the key points of the day's lesson, and assist the students in completing the practice sheets, if need be. We organize the twelve puzzles so that they get progressively harder. The first puzzles have very simple solutions, while the last puzzles are much more complicated. This design encourages the students, reinforces the key points of the day's lessons, and through repetition, continually challenges them to move forward while helping them learn. |
| | An Hour in Our Classes
Each class is structured the same way in order for the students to become accustomed to the routine. That routine includes traditional chess games, variants, puzzles, and lessons all of which are geared toward the specific tactics being taught that day. Our classes are kept to an hour so our students stay engaged, and at the same time, our classes are kept at a high energy level so that the class routine is always something to look forward to. |
Lessons
Each of our lessons are ten minutes long and taught in the middle of the hour-long classes. This time table is important to our collective as we believe that competing with video games and television means presenting chess with creative, high energy, fun, interactive lessons that are direct and efficient.
To ensure that each lesson is productive, the students are split into subgroups respective to ability and then taught on a large demonstration board. The teacher uses their assessment of the student's abilities to select lessons specifically geared towards each subgroup. Our goal is to deliver the key points of each lesson in several different ways so that each student has a better chance of retaining the information.
We also involve our students in the lessons with the use of questions and acted out scenes to help students with perspective. |
| | An Hour in Our Classes
Each class is structured the same way in order for the students to become accustomed to the routine. That routine includes traditional chess games, variants, puzzles, and lessons all of which are geared toward the specific tactics being taught that day. Our classes are kept to an hour so our students stay engaged, and at the same time, our classes are kept at a high energy level so that the class routine is always something to look forward to. |
Tactics
The chess education community all uses the same tactics. Tactics are defined as specific strategies and techniques to coordinate one's pieces in ways that yield the best result. The way we structure and present those tactics to our students is how we define ourselves.
More information can be found by using this wikipedia link about tactics. There you will also find a general a description of each of the following: attacking and defending pieces, discovered attack, fork, pin, skewer, pawns, sacrifices, zugzwang, and zwischenzug. |
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