Frequently asked questions

Absolutely! 

As a teacher or coach, you are automatically placed in the teacher environment upon registration. However, there is also an option to follow the Chessity learning path yourself! You can do this by switching environments at the top right of the screen. Click on your account name at the top right. Here you can change environments by clicking on Play chess. You will now see the same environment as users with an individual account. This way, you gain access to all lessons. 

Do you want to continue teaching afterwards? You can switch back at the same place. 

The table below shows the rights per role:

As you can see, the Administrator has the most rights. As an Administrator, you can decide who you want to grant access to which rights. 

Chessity offers two options for this:

1. The Expert Dashboard
   With the Expert Dashboard, you have extensive options to track your students' progress. You get access to various features and insights. Additionally, there are special webinars and trainings that explain how to use the dashboard. A handy starting point to get to know the Expert Dashboard better is this blog: The new dashboard for chess teachers.
   
   
2. The Report
   Want an overview at a glance? Then there's the report: a clear A4 per student with their progress. This report is very popular in primary schools because it is easy to share and keep. More information can be found here: The Chessity Chess Report Card.

In the Expert Dashboard you can easily track your students' activity.

First, select the date from which you want to view the data and click OK. The dashboard will then show all (checked) activities from that date.

This way, you can see at a glance how many stars a student has earned, how often someone has been online, and how many games have been played. This gives you quick insight into your students' engagement and allows you to motivate them to practice further.

See also: How can I create a fun leaderboard?

Do you want to collaborate with colleagues? You can! Within Chessity, you can work with different teachers and assistants. You can add them under School Settings.

A screen will appear at the bottom where you can manage the roles. Click on Add new coach to add another teacher.

Here, you have the option to create a new account or add an existing account. 

The three roles have different rights. You can find here>> more information about the different roles.

Your class discovers during the workshop how fun learning chess is, but it doesn't stop there! Learning chess stimulates various brain functions. It improves concentration and boosts creativity. Additionally, kids train problem-solving, dealing with mistakes and setbacks, and developing spatial awareness. Research shows that children who learn chess score better in both math and language.

In the brochure about school chess you can read more about the (brain) effects of chess. 

Students only see the level they are active in (and the levels they have already completed). The next level appears when:

• the student has played the very last lesson OR
• all stickers of the level have been obtained OR
• the exam has been passed (also via an entry test)

The best way to unlock the next level is as follows.

Step 1: Try to get at least 2 stars on all 40 lessons.

Step 2: Pass the exam successfully.

Step 3: You are ready for the next level!

The material at the new level might still be a bit difficult. Try to get 3 stars on as many lessons as possible in the previous level first. This way, you ensure you can handle the material at the new level.

You do this here in the Manage accounts tool.

The Manage accounts tool has a lot of features. Here is a list of all your students with the corresponding settings. Below you can read what the settings entail and how to use the manage students tool.

1. Add a student to your manage students. See also: Can I add an existing Chessity account to my students?

2. Use this button to purchase one or more new student accounts, which you can activate when ready. Above the button, you can see how many accounts you have in stock.

3. Sort the student list by username (alphabetically ascending or descending) or search for a username using the search field.

4. Sort the student list by name (first name alphabetically ascending or descending) or search for a name using the search field.

5. Add notes to the students at your discretion.

6. Sort the student list by label (alphabetically ascending or descending) or search for a group using the search field.

7. See the premium account duration of the students here.

8. Extend the premium account duration by 12 months. These 12 months start after the original expiration date. To extend an account, you must have enough premium accounts in stock.

9. Change your student's password or personal details.

10. Enable playful mode or classic mode.

11. Unlock all lessons for an advanced student. He or she does not need to unlock lessons first. Our advice is to be very cautious with this. Default setting: all lessons locked.

12. Shield the student from contacts with strangers. By checking protect student, you ensure that children can only communicate within their own group. Default setting: protected status on.

13. Enable or disable the chat function. The chat function is a popular feature within classes but sometimes leads to unwanted behavior. We recommend allowing this function under normal circumstances as it helps children practice an important 21st-century skill. Default setting: chat enabled.

14. Lock or unlock the Arena. In a locked arena, the student must first earn 5 stars per week to play. Default setting: Arena locked with star lock.

15. Use this panel to assign a label to your students.

16. Use this panel to remove a label.

17. Here you can see the different labels and the students who have been assigned that label.

18. Use this green button to expand the 'groups' panel if you don't see it on the screen, or to collapse it.

19. This is a handy feature if you want to adjust settings for multiple students at once. Manually check the students in question or use the option to select all students at once.

20. Here the main settings are briefly explained again.

In the manage students section, various settings are explained here >>.

Additionally, the most useful tool is, of course, the workshop tool, which allows you to easily start any chess lesson.

But you may have discovered that Chessity offers many more handy tools. These are the trainer tools. For teachers, we advise keeping these tools in the box for now. But for coaches, they can be very useful, as chess coaches can use them to give their own twist to chess lessons. 

Below are the trainer tools briefly explained:

Expert Dashboard
This is an important trainer tool that is also handy for teachers. The progress of all students is detailed here. You can see exactly how many stars all students have earned for each lesson.

Demo chessboard
This allows a coach to set up chess positions on the board. Moreover, you can use colors and arrows to explain important chess concepts.

Task manager
This allows you to assign certain lessons as tasks to students. The student can find these lessons by scrolling down on the learn page.

Exam manager
The exam manager is also a handy tool for teachers. It provides detailed insight into students' performance on exams.

Create workbooks
It might be that you don't have access to a computer or laptop at a club. With this tool, you can create workbooks so students can still work on exercises. After selecting lessons, you receive a PDF that you can print. 

See also:

• Blog: New teacher dashboard now available!
• How do I use the demo board?
• How can I assign tasks to my student?
• How does the Exammanager work?

Leaderboards are a fun way to motivate your students. In the Expert Dashboard, you can easily sort by activity to create your own leaderboard.

First, enter the start date from which you want the leaderboard to begin. For example, at the end of each month, you can create a leaderboard showing results from the past month. Then click OK.

You can then sort the overview — for instance, in descending order by the number of stars students have earned. This way, you can instantly see which students have collected the most stars.

Use the leaderboard to celebrate achievements with your class and encourage students to keep practicing!

There is no specific export button for leaderboards in Chessity, but you can easily export them yourself.

In the Expert Dashboard, select the leaderboard data you want to keep. Copy it with Ctrl + C (Windows) or Cmd + C (Mac) and then paste it with Ctrl + V (Windows) or Cmd + V (Mac) into, for example, Excel or Google Sheets.

This way, you can create, save, or further edit your own overview in seconds.

The little robot Chessto is designed to relieve and support teachers. It may be small and cute, but it's a very powerful tool!

While the children independently learn with good substantive instruction from Chessto and feedback from the program, the teacher has all the time for personal attention to individual students. This can be in the form of coaching children in their own learning process (teachers) or chess-specific instruction (chess trainers), or both.

For a student, it's just nice to be helped by Chessto; exactly with the things he or she finds difficult or doesn't fully understand yet. As often as needed and in the way that this individual student learns best.

This is what Chessto does:

1. Explain and teach

How does the knight's move work? Can you also make long moves with a queen? And how do you capture an opponent's piece without being captured yourself? In the Pawn level, Chessto acts as a virtual chess teacher helping children learn chess.

Also in the  teaching and practicing of checkmate and defending against mate Chessto plays a prominent role. Not only does it help children understand the concept of 'mate' well, but it also systematically elicits relevant prior knowledge. This helps process and remember the new information better. Children learn to automate the thinking steps, allowing them to apply what they've learned better in their chess games.

Chessto doesn't mind explaining things three times, ten times, or even twenty times. It never loses patience and is always helpful and cheerful. However, the little robot is deliberately programmed so that children cannot just sit back and let Chessto do the work.

2. Coaching in the learning process

Chessto keeps track of exactly which lesson(s) each student still needs to complete to earn a new sticker on the way to the mock exam. It coaches the students in their learning process.

Chessto assigns these lesson(s) as a special mission to the students. Mission accomplished? Then a new sticker shines on the homepage, and the student is one step closer to his or her diploma.

See also: How can I assign tasks to my student?

Chessto tasks that have been open for more than a month are automatically deleted.

Everyone with a coach account has access to the Chessity Academy. This series of video lessons is specially developed to quickly familiarize teachers and chess instructors with teaching using Chessity.

You can find the Chessity Academy in the menu bar:

The role of the teacher in Chessity is primarily a coaching role. Students go through the lessons independently and at their own pace. The method adapts in various ways to the level and learning style of the student. This happens 'under the hood', allowing the student to focus on practicing, while gradually learning better and faster.

As a teacher, you can track your students' progress in a student tracking system. This also gives you insight into how the performance of individual students can be improved.

In a traditional classroom instruction model, the teacher explains, for example, the knight's move or the double attack to the whole group. Then all students work on exercises and practice. The teacher reviews the exercises and provides individual or class-wide feedback and additional explanations if necessary.

In a Chessity lesson, students encounter lessons on the knight's move and double attack at their own time. They complete the exercises. If they make mistakes, they receive immediate feedback from the program. The teacher can see in the student tracking system which children are struggling with the knight's move or the double attack. While other children continue with their lessons, the teacher can bring these children together to provide extra explanations or advise them to first achieve a third star on the respective lesson or - in the case of the knight's move - play the game Jumping Jack for extra practice.

As a coaching teacher, you guide your students on their own learning path. Learning chess has truly become personalized.

Yes, indeed! After a student creates an account, they are given two choices:

We advise most students to choose the left option. Students then get started right away and begin at the beginning. If a student already has considerable chess experience, they can choose the right option. The student then starts with an entry test.

The task in this entry test is always to find the best move. Based on the student's performance, it is determined where they may begin. It could very well be that a student starts at the white-rook level. 

Unlock all lessons

It is also possible to unlock all lessons for a student. They do not need to unlock lessons first but can start with a lesson of their choice. 

You can unlock all lessons as a teacher in the manage students. At the bottom, you can select a series of actions. Choose: unlock all lessons, check a student, and click oké. This student can now choose lessons at will.

Note!

Children often overestimate their own level (a lot). They then start with lessons that are too difficult, leading to frustration. Taking a step back in level is difficult for many children. Our advice is to be very cautious with unlocking all lessons! Using the entry test is the best method to quickly get children working at their own level.

Chessity is designed in such a way that students have freedom in the pace at which they take lessons. A student can only move on to the next lesson once he has completed the previous lesson. As soon as a star is earned for a lesson, the next lesson is unlocked.

Students can choose for themselves whether they want to continue with the next lesson or whether they want to get three stars on the current lesson first.

If students go through their lessons too fast (with few stars), the system will ensure that they are slowed down and first deepen their skills.

For every fifth lesson (the games with mix tasks), a blockage is built in: students who have only one star for the previous lessons have to return to these lessons in order to earn more stars.

This automatically prevents a pupil from moving too fast into the depths while they have not yet sufficiently mastered a skill or grasped a concept.

In the student monitoring system (Coach - Dashboard) you can see exactly which lessons your students are at and how many stars they have passed. This information helps you to guide and coach your students in their learning process.

To improve in chess, it's important for children to practice and train regularly. This is best achieved when they can train in a fun way and enjoy it. That's why Chessity uses game-based learning.

Motivating reward systems

Chessity also motivates children in another way, namely through an effective reward system. The brain is very sensitive to rewards. Rewards stimulate learning and openness to change. If a reward follows a well-done exercise - even if it's just the sound of a ringing cash register, as in the Pawn-level lessons - it teaches the brain that something worked and that you should tackle such a problem the same way next time.

Reward stimuli in Chessity

Chessity is full of audiovisual and other reward stimuli for the brain. Ringing coins, mini-games where frogs and rockets win a race for you, stars you earn, lessons you unlock, and real games where the reward follows in the form of a win.

In the progress towards an exam, the student sees 'reward stickers'. These stickers represent the sub-areas a student must master before they can take the exam:

When a student has sufficiently mastered a part, the sticker is displayed in color on their start screen. 

Compact levels, quick progression to exams

The levels in Chessity consist of compact lesson series of 40 lessons each. This allows students to earn their diploma in a relatively short time, which is highly motivating to continue learning and also encourages other children in the group to earn their diploma. As students quickly progress from Pawn to Knight to Bishop level, and so on, the energy in the class remains high.

Level visible in avatar

You can see your highest achieved level in your avatar. If you have passed the Pawn diploma, a pawn appears next to your profile picture. Passed the Bishop exam? Then a bishop appears next to the photo. The level indication is a virtual status symbol and is super motivating.

Also in the Arena, the level is visible. Maybe a Knight player can beat a player with Queen level!

In student accounts, the Play section is locked by default with a 'star lock'. In a locked arena, the student must first earn 5 stars (per week) to be able to play. This ensures that students complete lessons and don't just play.

Below the Arena you can see how many stars the student still needs to unlock the Arena.

Prefer no star lock?

In the tool manage accounts, you can set per student whether the arena should have a lock through a star lock or not.

You do this in the Student Management. 

Click the pencil icon next to the student's name to edit details.

Here, you can change the username, email address, and password. You can also adjust the language and level of a student.

Students see a set of stickers (badges) on their home screen. These stickers correspond to the learning objectives of the level they are working on. Once a student has sufficiently mastered a learning objective, the corresponding sticker turns into color. When all stickers of a level are earned, the child automatically gains access to the exam for that level. This way, children can instantly see which objectives still need to be achieved before they can take the exam.

For this, use the Task manager tool.

Note: the Task tool is an expert tool mainly used by subject teachers and teachers with chess knowledge, who sometimes want to deviate from the normal learning path. Normally, as a teacher, you don't need to assign tasks yourself, because Chessto does that. He monitors which lesson(s) a child still needs to do to get a new sticker on the way to the next exam. Chessto assigns these lessons as a 'special mission' (task). Chessto's tasks are personalized and student-specific: the student receives exactly the tasks they need for their progress. (See also: How does Chessto guide students before and after an exam?)

How do you assign tasks to students?

You can find the Task manager under the Trainertools in the blue menu.

The first thing you see are all the lesson levels available in Chessity. By clicking on a level, you open an overview with all the lessons and games of that level. You can then select the lesson(s) you want the student(s) to practice. Indicate how many times the lesson should be done (between 1 and 5 times).

In this example, only lessons from the Pawn level are chosen, but it is also possible to select lessons from multiple levels.

After selecting the lessons, click on Choose students (top right). A list of all your students is now displayed. Select the students who should complete the chosen lessons. In the dropdown menu under Labels, you will find all the labels you have created in the dashboard. You can check individual students or multiple students at once. Click on Assign tasks.

You now see which students have been assigned a task. As the students start working on it, you can see exactly how far they have progressed, how many mistakes they have made, and whether they needed hints. By clicking on the blue Result icon, you get an even more detailed overview per student. 

How does the student see that tasks are ready for them?

As soon as Robin logs in to Chessity, he notices that something has changed. On the Learn page, tasks are waiting for him.

Robin starts with the lesson 'Give check'. He needs help from the program twice to find the correct solution and earns two stars on this lesson. When he practices again in the River, the stars are also there. After completing the lesson, Robin sees that he has already completed one task. For students, it is very motivating to see how far they have come and what their efforts have yielded.

Also read: Targeted practice: assigning tasks and homework

For this, use the Task manager tool.

Note: the Task tool is an expert tool mainly used by subject teachers and teachers with chess knowledge, who sometimes want to deviate from the normal learning path. Normally, as a teacher, you don't need to assign tasks yourself, because Chessto does that. He monitors which lesson(s) a child still needs to do to get a new sticker on the way to the next exam. Chessto assigns these lessons as a 'special mission' (task). Chessto's tasks are personalized and student-specific: the student receives exactly the tasks they need for their progress. (See also: How does Chessto guide students before and after an exam?)

How do you assign tasks to students?

You can find the Task manager under the Trainertools in the blue menu.

The first thing you see are all the lesson levels available in Chessity. By clicking on a level, you open an overview with all the lessons and games of that level. You can then select the lesson(s) you want the student(s) to practice. Indicate how many times the lesson should be done (between 1 and 5 times).

In this example, only lessons from the Pawn level are chosen, but it is also possible to select lessons from multiple levels.

After selecting the lessons, click on Choose students (top right). A list of all your students is now displayed. Select the students who should complete the chosen lessons. In the dropdown menu under Labels, you will find all the labels you have created in the dashboard. You can check individual students or multiple students at once. Finally, click on Assign tasks.

All-in-1 chess lesson on the digital board

As a digital teaching method for school chess, Chessity is fully suitable for use on the digital board. By connecting your computer to the digital board, you get all lessons, example problems, exercises, and games interactively on the digital school board. This saves a lot of time and works very pleasantly. But as a teacher, you sometimes also want to set up your own positions on the board. For example, to discuss a game, show a nice mate pattern, or to go through difficult tactics exercises with the students.

The digital demo board can be found under the Trainertools in the blue menu in your teacher environment. 

With the digital demo board you can:

• Quickly load or set up a position. You can place or remove pieces with a click on the chessboard.
• Use the FEN button to load or copy positions. This function is mostly for chess trainers.
• Draw colored arrows or color squares as a visual aid to indicate attacks, threats, plans, or safe squares. This greatly helps in training chess insight.
• Place coins or flags on the board to create your own games.
• Create impossible positions, like this one:

stalemate...

or the positions from the  chess fairy tale with the three black kings:

 3x mate...

A few more advantages:

• Nice and large, so that even the students at the back of the class can see it well.
• Never lose pieces again, or have to use glue to stick loose magnets.
• No more carrying a chessboard or tidying up.

How do you use the demo board?

Below is a brief explanation of the demo board:

1. Change appearance: click on the B to adjust the color of the board. Click on the P to change the background.
2. Change settings: click on the gear to change the board settings. For example, you can turn on the coordinates.
3. Place demo board: with these buttons you can enlarge, reduce, and move the demo board so that it is well visible on the digital board.
4. Place/remove all pieces: click on the empty chessboard to remove all pieces and markings at once. Click on the board with the starting position to set up the starting position.
5. Copy/paste FEN: copy and paste the FEN code of a chess position to immediately set the board in that position, or to use elsewhere. It's a shortcut to share or reconstruct positions without having to replay all moves.
6. Place pieces: place pieces by first 'picking' them next to the board (click on piece) and then 'placing' them on the desired spot (click on square or drag piece to square). You can remove a piece by clicking on it again or by dragging it away. You can also remove it by placing another piece on it.
7. Place flags/coins: this works the same way as placing pieces.
8. Color square: select a color and then click on the square you want to mark. Clicking the square again removes the color.
9. Color area: select a color (with corners) and then click the border squares of the area you want to mark. Clicking the same border squares again removes the color.
10. Draw arrow: select an arrow and draw an arrow by moving over the board with the mouse button pressed. Repeat this action to remove the arrow.
11. Plus and minus: select a color (red or green) and then click on the square you want to mark. A + appears in the green box, a – in the red box. Clicking the same square again removes it. You can use this to indicate which squares a chess piece can or cannot go to.
12. Remove marking: click on the eraser to remove all markings on the board. The pieces remain.