Frequently asked questions
How does Chessto help me as a teacher?
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.
Once a week, 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.
Good to know: if the teacher has already assigned tasks to a student, Chessto does not assign missions.
The teacher can also choose to disable the distribution of missions by Chessto in the coach tool Student Management:
