An Ideal Chess Lesson

Sort:
PawnAlmighty

Hello All, 
I am trying to design an optimum chess lesson. I have put together some ideas. Please provide your feedback and help me improve it. (This lesson is for those who want to improve ELO rating in best possible time but might not be too interesting for those who're just trying to enjoy chess and don't want a focused study schedule.)

 

                                            Duration 90 minutes

================================================


Time Division - 
--------------------------------------------

10 Minutes - Tactics

10 Minutes - Endgame

10 Minutes - Opening For White

10 Minutes - Opening For Black

10 Minutes - Model Game in White opening

10 Minutes - Model Games in Black opening

30 Minutes - Student's Game analysis

 

Before the Lesson-

----------------------------------------------

1. 10 endgame and 10 Tactics positions are to be provided by the Teacher and student is supposed to solve them before the class begins.   These Endgame and Tactics are very carefully chosen and comply fully with Student's repertoire. If the tactics and specially endgames are never going to show up or going to show up after 50 years, there is no point in wasting time in those.   

2. An opening repertoire for white and black should be provided in advance. The repertoire should be annotated with text and not too much variations   The ideas would be like the possible weak squares, the typical Pawn Structures, minor piece imbalances etc.   

3. Based on the two points above, the Student is supposed to play a few games and needs to annotate them and then send the best 3 games to the Teacher. Teacher might choose one of them for analysis during lesson or show them all in quick succession.    -- The Best games would be where Student thinks, he managed to implement the ideas (tactics, opening and Ending) in his games.

 

During the Lesson-

----------------------------------------------

1. Teacher is supposed to go over the Tactics and Endgames solved by the student and provide tips and ask questions to ensure that Student understood the idea completely. 


2. Similar exercise will be done with openings, Teacher must try to confuse the student with questions or strange counter moves and if Student has understood the ideas well he should be able to figure out a solution.   This exercise is just to ensure that Student is not just memorizing the variations.


3. Next up are two Model games in the opening from Student's repertoire, these are chosen to give the student a complete feeling of what sort of middlegame positions arise in his opening of choice, what kind of tactics and endgames   are going on and most importantly the two critical points in the game-   

 1. When the middle game arises and student can decide the flow of the game and/or create imbalances.

2. How and when endgame transition happened and what factors motivated a player to go into endgame.    At such critical points, Teacher should allow the student 2 minutes to figure out the plan and best move accordingly.


4. The last 30 minutes are for the Student's game analysis. The point here is to identify where student failed to implement his learned concepts.   Without this segment, most of the chess studies and lessons will be ineffective as the info. acquired will be wasted andsoon be forgotten.
   Again this analysis shuld be done in Q & A format.

 

After The lesson-

---------------------------------------------------
 Student will require quite some rest post the lesson as it was a very long and dificult exercise.  Student will solve the given assignment and try to replicate the lessons learned so far in his games.

 

General Guidelines-

----------------------------------------------------
1. Brain needs time to let the information sink in. So, don't do anything chess specific apart from pondering about your lesson immediately after your lesson. Do some light exercise or sleep.2. This lesson should ideally the first challenging task in your day or the last challenging task before you go to sleep.3. It is a very good idea to record your lesson so that you could revise it a couple of days later.


   

 

 

 

 

bong711

You are studying a little of everything in 90 min. Perhaps it.s better to spend at least 20 min in a topic. Divide into MWF and TTS schedule to cover all the above. Good luck in your chess 2018!

 

 

 

kindaspongey

The plan seems to me to be too rigid. If one is considering an interesting endgame topic, one does not want to feel obliged to stop because of an in-advance planned requirement to go on to opening study. If one's experience is anything like mine, one never knows how long anything is going to take. Better, I think, to base one's study decisions on how things are going at the time, both in one's study and in one's games.

PawnAlmighty

@kindsspongey Yeah this does seem rigid but obviously the Teacher should make suitable alterations as an when the Student's needs demand it.

But please note, all the aspects that are being discussed here are already thought out by the Student in his own time, during the lesson he is just supposed to rectify errors in his thinking and not sit down thinking for 30 minutes. This won't be an optimum use to money spent in the coaching.

And lastly, as in chess, so in chess coaching, there must always be a plan and sure you need to make suitable adjustments along the way.

 

SeniorPatzer

Is there a minimum rating for the student in this scenario?  If so, what is it?

PawnAlmighty

@SeniorPatzer I am planning this for a Student (adult) rated 900. But I think it should work fine even for minimum 800 but below that I'd say two sections(Opening for white and opening for black) with be tweaked with emphasis on basic opening principles rather than variations. But more or less it should work.

HobbyPIayer

Ambitious!

Though, 10 minutes per topic seems hardly enough time for any sort of meaningful instruction.

30 minutes per topic would, IMO, be far more beneficial. Especially considering the fact that the student will likely be asking questions, discussing insights, needing examples, et cetera.

Cover less topics per lesson, but go deeper into each topic, is my advice.

Ideally, your student(s) will come out of it feeling like they've really learned something well, rather than feeling like they've learned many things, but at only a surface level.