The
George Koltanowski Memorial Conference on Chess and Education
Sponsored
by
New
York's Chess-in-the-Schools Foundation
and
The
University of Texas at Dallas
Co-sponsored
by
The
U.S. Chess Federation Charitable Trust and Jim Eade
With
additional support from the ISOA Corporation
Program
For
answers to frequently asked questions about the conference, go to the University
of Texas at Dallas web site http://chessweb.utdallas.edu.
Friday,
December 14
8:00-9:00am,
Atrium: Reverchon, Pryor, Moreno,
and Sanger Rooms. Registration and preregistration check-in.
All attendees must have badges to enter the conference.
Late fee for the conference, $90. Fee
for registrants in Chess in the Classroom I and II courses, and for UTD
students, staff, or faculty with ID, $45. Teacher
fee for Friday ONLY, $30.
Teacher
participation in four sessions Friday can result in 5 continuing education units
being awarded by the University of Texas at Dallas in conjunction with TAGT and
SBEC. You must attend four
different sessions and sign in to receive the five hours credit and your
certificate of participation. Not every session Friday counts -- choose only the ones
marked by an asterisk [*].
Session
1, 9:00-10:15am
Room
A Chess Instruction
Jan
Berglund
*"The
Chess Four Program." The World
Chess Federation's (FIDE's) recommended methods for teaching chess to talented
youngsters will be presented. In
particular, the grade four program, for children at age ten, used at the
regional, state, national, and international level, will be discussed.
60 minutes
Room
B Computer Chess Instruction
Steve
Lipschultz, M.D.
*"A
Demonstration of Think Like a King Software." Dr. Lipschultz will give a presentation of his integrated
software package for scholastic chess that includes modules on the game of chess
as well as chess management software that allows teachers with only a minimum
knowledge of chess to track student participation and print out certificates to
mark achievement and progress at each learning milestone.
60 minutes
Room
C Teaching Experienced Players
Fernand
Gobet and P. Jansen (read by Dr. Redman)
"Training
in Chess: A Scientific Approach."
This paper will show how our current understanding of cognitive
psychology can be applied to improve techniques of chess training, teaching, and
learning. It starts by giving an
overview of the state of research on chess players' memory, perception, and
problem solving. It then reviews a
psychological theory that has been proposed recently as a synthesis of recent
work. Building on this theory, it
then reviews various training techniques, both pro and con.
It concludes by offering general considerations on chess teaching and
learning.
60 minutes
Break,
10:15-11:00am
Break
for a Continental breakfast and discussion.
Room D. For conference
participants only -- wear your badge!
Session
2, 11:15am-12:30pm
Room
A Classroom Resources:
An Overview
FM
Tom Brownscombe
*"Chess
Resources for the Classroom Teacher."
The Scholastic Director of the U.S. Chess Federation, FIDE Master Tom
Brownscombe, discusses new materials and new methods available for teaching
chess in the classroom for both elementary and secondary teachers, including
supplemental materials, software, and websites.
60 minutes
Room
B Building a Chess Program
Beatriz
Marinello
*"Building
a Successful Chess Program." Using
an existing chess program that was established in Chappaqua, New York, in 1999,
the author describes the necessary steps to building a chess program.
60 minutes
Room
C Building a Chess Program
David
MacEnulty
*"Developing
a Successful Chess Program in the Elementary Schools."
Describes the work done at a large public elementary school, C.E.S. 70,
in the Bronx by a Board of Education teacher whose classroom subject was chess.
60 minutes
Break
12:30-2:00pm Lunch. (You're on your
own.)
Session
3 2:00-3:15pm
Room
A Capturing the Imagination
Stephen
Herx
<
>
*"History
and Story Told through Chess Problems."
In August 2000, Chess-in-the-Schools presented four chess problems
created to illustrate stories from history and battle.
A report on an innovative effort to integrate literacy, language,
geography and history with chess, particularly appropriate for gifted
youngsters.
30 minutes
Sunil
Weeramantry
*"Using
Chess to Teach the Social Sciences: An
integrated Approach." Drawing
on material from his forthcoming book, Mr. Weeramantry will present a novel
method of teaching history and geography by integrating the study of those
subjects with the history and geography of the development of chess.
Particularly appropriate for teachers of gifted and talented children.
30 minutes
Room
B Chess in Guidance and Counseling
Fernando
Moreno
*"Using
Chess to Facilitate Social Skills Development in Children."
A discussion of an innovative approach for teaching social skills to
children using the game of chess as part of their guidance and counseling
program. Based upon
Cognitive-Behavioral Theory and the methods of the W.T. Grant Consortium on the
School-Based Promotion of Social Competence, the approach has been successfully
used at elementary, middle, and high school levels.
Mr. Moreno's book on the subject, Teaching Life Skills through Chess:
A Guide for Educators and Counselors, has just been published by
American Literary Press, Inc.
60 minutes
Room
C Evaluating the chess of gifted
children
Dr.
Danny Kopec
*"Knowledge-Based
Test Suites for the Evaluation of Chess Strength."
The Bratko-Kopec Test was designed in 1982 to evaluate computer chess
programs. Over the years, this test
has proven extremely reliable in distinguishing between chessplayer rating
levels for both humans and machines. The
work has been continually updated and continues to prove useful.
In the classroom, it has particular applicability to gifted and talented
young chessplayers.
60 minutes
Session
4, Friday, 3:30-4:45pm
Room
A Chess for Gifted and Talented
Students
David
Sorensen
*"On
the Making of a Chess Parent." A
discussion based on personal experience of 1) motivations that draw a parent and
child into the world of scholastic chess, 2) their five-point strategy for
improvement, 3) significant training issues, 4) a tour of the scholastic chess
tournament scene, 5) how to relate to, begin, or do without a chess club.
Based on his own experiences with his son, Reed Sorensen, who eighteen
months after he learned to play the game finished third in his grade level at
the National Scholastic K-12 Chess Championship, the paper offers insight into
how to spot and develop significant chess talent.
30 minutes
Dr.
Ken Kiewra
*"Developing
Young Chess Masters: What Are the
Best Moves?" Although
characteristics of chess talent are well studied, the development of chess
talent has been largely ignored. The
paper reports on the results of interviews with parents of young chess masters,
and predicts that quick development results from five factors.
30 minutes
Room
B Research
Dr.
Robert Ferguson
*"An
Overview of Chess Research." An
overview of significant research on chess and education conducted over the past
thirty years, drawing on the presenter's own original research projects and
showing how teaching chess helps solve pressing social problems.
60 minutes
Room
C Getting Started
Stephen
Shutt
"Starting
a School Chess Club: Techniques
from the Open Classroom for Teaching Chess to Beginners."
This paper discusses the steps necessary to start up a school chess club
and the teaching methods needed to introduce chess to beginners.
In particular, the paper will answer the question:
With limited chess expertise and financial resources, how can I develop a
championship scholastic chess program?
60 minutes
Reception
5:00-7:00pm
RECEPTION:
Room D. "Meet the Instructors:
Chess in the Classroom I and II."
A reception to allow conference participants to meet the instructors for
Chess in the Classroom I and II, the internet courses offered by UTD over UT
TeleCampus. Dr. Tim Redman and Dr.
Alexey Root, along with other members of the UTD Chess Program will attend.
Dr. Root's current students and prospective students of Drs. Root and
Redman are especially encouraged to attend and learn about both courses, which
can be taken in any order and are both offered Spring semester.
Wear your badge!
Saturday,
December 15
Session
5, 9:00-10:15am
Room
A Metaphors and Methods
Yuri
Samer
"Better
Chess Analogies." An account
of the search for improved metaphors and analogies to describe what is actually
going on in the mind through chess.
30 minutes
Ed
Hirsch
"In
the Spirit of Caissa: Chess for
Holistic Education." When we
consider chess and its role in education, it is helpful to have a larger vision
of the purpose and potential of chess in "the spirit of Caissa."
We gain the perspective of chess as an integrative path of personal
development, akin to the martial arts. As
a powerful resource for developing an attitude of lifelong learning and
creativity, chess can also serve as a model for holistic education, so much
needed in these times.
30 minutes
Room
B Developing a university chess
program
Dr.
Alan T. Sherman
"The
Chess Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County."
Chess has become an integral part of the culture and identity of UMBC,
which has no football team but offers chess scholarships and holds pep rallies
for its chess team. Chess
activities include exhibition matches, a Master Preparation chess course, summer
camp, coaching sessions, weekly meeting, tournaments, and special lectures.
The talk explains how the program was developed and how it benefits this
midsized public university and the surrounding community.
30 minutes
Dr.
Tim Redman
"The
Chess Program at The University of Texas at Dallas."
The fourfold aim of the chess program at UTD has been 1) to develop chess
as a symbol for UTD, 2) to achieve media recognition for UTD, 3) to recruit
gifted and talented high school students, 4) to use chess as a means of reaching
into inner-city Dallas schools. To
help teachers nationwide incorporate chess in their curricular and after-school
programs, UTD now offers two for-credit courses, Chess in the Classroom I and
II, over the internet. Completion of both courses, which can be taken in either
order or together, at either level, leads to the award of a Certificate in Chess
and Education from UTD.
30 minutes
Room
C Making programs, getting
results
Dr.
Ronnie Priest and Jeff Bulington
"The
Checkmate in School: A
Demonstration Project." This
paper will address the fundamental soundness of establishing a chess project in
the public schools system, how to establish such a project, reasonable
expectations of benefits to be derived from such a project, and research
endeavors surrounding it.
30
minutes
Julie
Young
"The
Effect on Academic Scores for Students Participating in Chess Clubs."
The results of a pilot study comparing chess club participants' Portland
(OR) Achievement Levels Test scores with all students in the same school.
30
minutes
Break
10:15-11:00am
Break for Continental breakfast and discussion, free to conference
participants. Room D.
Wear your badge!
Session
6, 11:15am-12:30pm
Room
A Practical Methods for Teaching
Chess
Javier
Pinedo
"Practical
Teaching Methods in the Elementary Classroom."
Javier Pinedo will demonstrate the various creative methods he uses to
teach chess for gifted and talented students, relating them to game theory and
accommodating various individual learning styles.
60 minutes
Room
B Resources
Harold
J. Winston
fax:
312 603-9826
"How
the USCF Charitable Trust Works." The
U.S. Chess Federation Charitable Trust is a 501(c)(3) organization that provides
funding for socially beneficial uses of chess.
Founded in 1967 by Harold Dondis and Ed Edmondson, the Trust supports
chess in the schools nationwide. Past
USCF President and current Trust Chairman Harold Winston supplies an overview of
the funding the Trust provides to programs that promote chess as a social good
and chess and education.
30 minutes
John
Jacobs
"The
Dallas Area Chess in the Schools Foundation."
DACIS President and FIDE Master John Jacobs explains the role of the
Dallas Area Chess in the Schools Foundation in providing chess instruction to
students in DISD schools.
30 minutes
Room
C Research
Frank
Niro, M.B.A.
"DeGroot's
Thought and Choice in Chess: A
21st-Century Perspective." A
consideration of the work of one of the pioneers in the academic study of chess,
UTD Ph.D. student and USCF Charitable Trust President Frank Niro explores the
enduring elements in DeGroot's research and contemporary responses to it.
30 minutes
Chris
Benson, M.A.
<
>
"A
Meta-Analysis on How Training in Chess Affects Children's Scores on Academic
Aptitude Tests." A number of research studies have attempted to discover
whether training children in the game of chess can have an effect on their
academic aptitude scores. This
paper uses a statistical technique called Meta-Analysis to combine these studies
into one large study by using statistical methods.
The basic results of this study showed that chess training had a very
significant (p<0.01) positive effect on children's performances on academic
aptitude tests, and a weighted least squares regression analysis showed that
this was best shown for junior high-school and upper-elementary students, who
had at least a one-hour exposure to chess for a minimum of one school year.
30 minutes
Break,
12:30-2:00pm Lunch (you're on your
own).
Session
7, 2:00-3:15pm
Room
A Practical Methods for Teaching
Chess
Stephen
Herx
<
>
"Create-a-Mate:
Checkmate and the Discovery Method." Chess-in-the-Schools instructors have used the
"create-a-mate" method for the past two years.
Students are broken into groups of two or four to create a mate given
certain material; this group discovery method has been particularly effective in
teaching.
30 minutes
David
MacEnulty
"Tips
and Tricks for Teaching Total Beginners."
A quick tour of methods incorporating verbal, visual, and kinesthetic
learning styles.
30 minutes
Room
B Getting results:
Chess and standardized testing
Joseph
Eberhard
"A
Case Study on the Relationship between Classroom Chess Instruction and Nonverbal
Problem Solving Abilities of Economically Disadvantaged Students."
The study was conducted at a middle school in South Texas with
demographics typical of South Texas. The
results demonstrated that economically disadvantaged students given chess
instruction experienced significant improvement in academic potential as
measured by the MAT.
30 minutes
James
Liptrap
<jliptrapatdcnet2000.com>
"Chess
and Standardized Test Scores." Regular
(non-honors) Elementary Students who participated in a school chess club showed
twice the improvement of non-chessplayers in reading and mathematics between
third and fifth grades on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).
30 minutes
Room
C Chess and National and
International Education
Jorge
Vega Fernandez (read by
Dr. Redman)
"Chess
within the National Education Programs of Cuba and El Salvador."
In America only two Latin countries have chess established as part of the
national education system. The
presenter, a former President of the Cuban Chess Federation and current
Executive Director of the newly established Chess in Schools Program in El
Salvador, will describe the programs in Cuba and El Salvador, their successes
and the challenges they face.
30 minutes
Cav.
Nicola Palladino (read by Dr.
Redman)
<
>
"Goals,
Instruments, and Prospects for Chess in Schools in the Era of
Globalization." A paper
presented by the Chairman and Founder of the World Chess Federation's (FIDE)
Chess in Schools Committee at the recent FIDE meeting in Greece, outlining the
goals and accomplishments of the Committee to date, and indicating the direction
that FIDE should take in the area of chess and education for the future.
30 minutes
Break,
3:15-4:00pm Snack and discussion,
restricted to participants. Wear
your badge! Room D.
Session
8, 4:15-5:30pm
Room
A Problems
Dr.
Ken Kiewra
"Distractions
in the Tournament Rooms: Is Anyone
Paying Attention?" The paper
a) explains the nature of attention and the role of attention in chess play, b)
describes and illuminates sources of distraction at chess tournaments, and c)
offers suggestions for improving tournament playing conditions.
30 minutes power point
Dr.
Alexey Root
"Tears
in Scholastic Chess Competitions." A
study of the incidence of crying in scholastic chess competitions. Surveys and interviews show that one-third of the adults
supervising schoolchildren in chess competitions had a child in their cry or
become very upset during or immediately after a game. In this paper, an analysis of youth sports competitions
(including chess) will precede an analysis of adult reactions to chess tears.
The conclusion of the paper examines structural changes recommended for
youth sports and examines whether similar structural changes would be
appropriate for scholastic chess.
30 minutes
Room
B Connecting chess and the
curriculum
Goran
Antunac
"Using
Chess to Teach Other Academic Subjects."
A consideration of the various methods to incorporate chess into school
curriculum.
30 minutes
Jon
Bayley
"Connecting
Chess to the Regular Curriculum." Further
methods for incorporating chess into the school curriculum.
30 minutes
Room
C Using chess in the college
classroom
Dr.
Bill Martin
<
>
"Teaching
a university-level chess course." Based
on an undergraduate course, Chess/culture, he teaches at DePaul, the paper will
cover: 1) the basic idea of the course, 2) the topics covered, 3) development of
one or two of the philosophical problems that chess is useful for exploring, 4)
his experience in teaching the course to date.
30 minutes
Dr.
Michael Potts
Dr.
Michael Potts
"Chess
as a Supplement to Teaching Ethics: An
Example." Using chess to teach Aristotle's Ethics, and moral
decision making.
30 minutes
Sunday,
December 16
Session
9, 9:00-10:15am
Room
A Practical methods in the classroom
Dr.
William Bart
"The
Development of Chess Skill with the Endgame among Young Children."
An investigation of the development of chess skill in endgame play among
young children. Looking at two
positions in the endgame, each with only four players, the experimenter observed
the understanding demonstrated by ten players age 6 and ten players age 8.
30 minutes
Stephan
Gerzadowicz
"The
Practice of Theory." A
presentation of a complete curriculum for one semester of classroom chess
instruction.
30 minutes
Room
B Practical Programs
Carol
Lipton
"Chess
in a DISD Magnet School: the
Development of a Program."
Describes
the development of the chess program at Dealey from its beginnings as an
after-school enrichment program through it growth into a community-supported
activity.
30 minutes
Lynne
Chapman
"Scholastic
Chess for Parents and Teachers." Chess
education for parents and schoolteachers is an important element in supporting
chess education for children. This
interactive presentation will discuss the following topics:
parent/teacher involvement in the child's chess education and
experiences; expectations at chess events; chess etiquette for players and
parents; incorporating chess concepts into general education; the frequency and
schedule of major events and the role of tournament officials; defining the
structure of scholastic chess in the United States.
30 minutes
Room
C Chess in History and Fiction
Dr.
Jenny Adams
"'At
the ches with me she gan to pleye': Learning
Chess in the Medieval World." Just
as chess currently functions as a cerebral pastime and, in the field of
education, a powerful tool, so too did it serve an important role, albeit a very
different one, in medieval culture. In
fact, chess entered into Western Europe right in the middle of the Middle Ages,
reaching a zenith of popularity in the thirteenth century, and fading a bit with
the advent of the printing press, which eventually made possible the mass
production of playing cards. This
talk will discuss the place of chess in medieval culture and offer some
tentative explanations for its popularity.
Along the way, it will consider the role of chess in medieval education
and its use as a metaphor for social organization in cultures throughout Europe.
30 minutes
Dr.
Tim Redman
"'A
nice book, but what's his rating?': Rating
the Books of Chess Fiction." A
look at the treatment of chess in fiction, with particular emphasis on Vladimir
Nabokov, Walter Tevis, and Stefan Zweig, but also looking at other fictional
chess adventures, from Alice to Harry.
Break,
10:15-11:00am Continental breakfast and
discussion, free to participants. Wear
your badge! Room D
Session
10, 11:15am-12:30pm
Plenary
Session
Room
A
Dr.
Uvencio Blanco
<
>
"Why
and How Teach Chess in Schools?" An
answer to these two fundamental questions by the author of Why Teach Chess in
Schools? and The Chess Teaching System, recognized by the World Chess
Federation (FIDE) and distributed worldwide.
60 minutes Note: in Spanish, with a translator
This
concludes the formal sessions of the Conference.
Two business meetings will be held in the afternoon.
Break
12:30-2:00pm
Lunch
(you're on your own)
Business
Meeting #1, 2:00-3:15pm
Room
A
A
meeting of the U.S. Chess Federation's Chess in Education Committee, Tim Redman,
Chair. Spectators are welcome.
Break,
3:15-4:00pm Beverages and snacks for
committee members and conference participants.
Wear your badge! Room A.
Business
Meeting #2, 4:00-5:15pm
Room
A
A
meeting to discuss the formation of an international Society for the Study of
Chess and Education and to start planning the next conference.