The Learning Spiral

A New Way to Teach and Study Chess

Kevin Cripe

• Publisher: Mongoose Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781936277896
• Edition: 1
• Subtopic: Education General

Will memorizing a mountain of related chess positions help you to learn? Have you spent untold time studying a chess idea and then found that you can’t remember it in a game? Education research, says Kevin Cripe, has found that optimal learning is based largely on the structure of problem sets and your brain’s ability to understand similarities and differences. In The Learning Spiral, the author contends that you will actually absorb the game’s concepts faster with seemingly random but carefully selected puzzles than with traditional, step-by-step teaching techniques. The key is that this is closer to real-life chess play, where nobody tells you the “theme” of the position in front of you.

With twenty-five years’ experience getting underprivileged kids to achieve beyond all expectations, Cripe now takes his holistic instructional methods to the chess arena. Designed for both chess novices and their coaches, The Learning Spiral sets out the theory, explains how it works, and then applies it with more than 400 positions for the student to solve.

So go ahead, analyze, differentiate and improve quickly!

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Foreword by Dr. John Hattie, University of Melbourne
• Note to Students, Teachers, and Parents
• Introduction
• Watching Children Learn
• Chapter 1: The Pieces and How They Move
• Chapter 2: Checkmate or Stalemate
• Chapter 3: Pins and Skewers
• Chapter 4: Knight Moves and Back-rank Problems
• Chapter 5: Deflections and Promotions
• Chapter 6: Games to Learn From
• Chapter 7: Endgame Tactics and Smashing the Kingside
• Chapter 8: Evaluation, Basic Endgames, and Stems
• Chapter 9: The Active King
• Chapter 10: Some Ideas from Grandmaster Games
• Chapter 11: Practice Thinking
• Glossary