2008 Begins

Before we knew it, 2008 was well and truly underway. As our ‘man-on-the-ground’ Sam Grumont has taken a coaching position in other parts Loddon, our link between the 12 schools is relying solely on e-mail. This will certainly make things challenging.

Our focus this year will be ‘whats happening in the classrooms’, and 'research perpsectives', and by the end of the year we want profiles from all of the schools, all of our tutors, and some insights into our research journey.

Harry and I are developing research projects, and will provide previews about what our research is about. By engaging in this on-line learning community you are participating in developing a form of data. Comments, contributions, and reflections, are all qualitative, valid forms of rich data called extant data.

So what you might ask? If you’re a teacher in Victoria you might (or might not) have noticed teachers are now mandated to have a documented 100 hours of professional learning every five years, and 50 of those hours have to have a research base, IF THEY ARE TO MAINTAIN THEIR TEACHER REGISTRATION. That’s a pretty radical shift in our working conditions, and one I haven’t heard too much discourse about on the coalface.

May I humbly suggest, participating in this project and joining in the conversation, may go towards meeting some of those criteria. I’ll explain in more detail in a future post.

On a slightly quirkier note, Thursday the 8th May sees the R-U-MAD (r u Making A Difference Day) being held at Castlemaine Secondary College, where the whole school community will be involved in examining the question: ‘what can you do to make a difference.?’

In Sydney, it also sees the launch of Chess: The Musical, held at Sydneys THEATRE ROYAL. No, I’m not mad and if you don’t believe me look here.

Let the game begin, and remember: white goes first!

Counting Down......

The Chess-Squared contingent will this week be fine tuning it’s presentation for the Chess In Schools and Communities International Conference held at Aberdeen University Scotland on 27August- 2 September. Below are the 9 Keynote Presentations from a diverse and expert range of presenters:

 Children’s Involvement in Education: Ethical Issues and Empowering Research Policy and Practice: Janet Shucksmith, Teesside University

 What does Research into Expertise tell us about Chess Teaching and Coaching?: Ferdinand Gobet, Brunel University

 Chess and Education: the Re-creation of Learning School, Home and Community: Susan Polgar, Grandmaster and Director of SPICE at Texas Tech University & Ali Nihat Yazici, Turkish Chess Federation

 Development and Impact of Chess-in-the-Schools in New York City Public Schools: Marley Kaplan, Chess in the Schools, New York

 Children and Social Capital: Virginia Morrow, University of London

 Chess: Just a Game or a Powerful Teaching Strategy for Learning Mathematics: Dr Steve Tobias, (James Cook University, Townsville, Australia) Steve Carroll (Castlemaine Secondary College), Harry Poulton (Castlemaine Chess Club) and Sam Grumont (Castlemaine Innovations and Excellence School Cluster Coordinator)

 The Rewards of Self-Control and the Joys of Concentration: What Chess Might Teach us About Learning: Jonathan Rowson, British Chess Champion (2004 – 2006)

 Children’s Health and Well Being: the Process of Mentoring and Coaching in Informal Education: Kate Philip, University of Aberdeen

 Using Chess in a Counseling/Mentoring Approach for Students : Fernando Moreno, Montgomery County Public Schools

Apart from the Keynote Presentations, there will 21 workshops presented on a range of topics related to chess and education from presenters from all around the world.

We will have highlights from the conference listed on our blog, while we're in Scotland.

The art of ETHNOGRAPHY

Ethnography is an qualitative educational research method developed by anthropologists, where culture is the central construct: it is literally the description of a social group. As a process, it is the science of cultural description and represents a dynamic ‘picture’ of the way of life of some interacting social group.

A famous anthropologist observed by way of analogy, “The last thing a fish will see is water’. What may seem remarkable to a visitor from another culture may seem matter of fact to the local person.

A caricature of an ethnographer is a middle-aged anglo-saxon sitting in front of their tent diligently writing in their notebook the events of the day.

Harry has been getting students to write about their chess experiences and has collected over 100 vignettes, when compiled are building a snapshot of what’s happening with the chess program, in ways that may not at first seem obvious.
Two stories below give a really rich, or ‘thick’ description about some of the ways our chess program is impacting on students.

It would be interesting to hear people’s comments about how they interpret different aspects of the comments below.

Grade 6-girl Age 11 years old, Chewton Primary School, Mt Alexander School Cluster, Central Victoria. Came running up to when I arrived to tutor at Chewton Primary School, and she was overjoyed and bursting to tell about her victory over her step dad

(In her own words).
I play chess at home with my step dad and we played for three hours like a footy game. I beat him! It was a long tough game. After I won my mum said you were beaten by an 11 year old girl and my stepdad said, “I want a re-match!!!” I think he was embarrassed. Chess teaches me to build strategy. When I played my step dad he like pretended he had a plan but he didn’t. So I was able to take his queen.
I like playing chess in school it is fun. It has made me think about what can happen if I make a wrong move and a right move. I think about where I am going to move and if I move there what will happen. I play chess with my brother and sister.

Grade 6-boy Age 12 years old, Chewton Primary School, Mt Alexander School Cluster, Central Victoria. Has a history of low performance and has started to shine with the advent of the chess program.

(In his own words)
I like to play chess. It is the best strategy game I have played. It is challenging playing Harry and my Dad. My Great Grand Dad was a good chess player. He died three months after I was born.
Chess has improved my mind in my football with the strategies with the ball. It has improved the way I work out how to tackle, and the position of people and things. I like to set up the footy team like a chess game when I am captain.
My Dad and I play chess a lot. We play about six games a week. He beats me all the time. That is annoying. I don’t play any other games except kicking the football. Chess and football are my main interests.
I like chess better than maths but chess is pretty much maths. Chess is maths with the points and strategies. Chess has improved my thinking skills in pretty much every way. My concentration has improved. With maths chess helped me a lot. My grades were down before I started playing chess and now they are a lot higher- puzzles, numbers.When I lose I feel I need to get better. I think this person is better than me I had better train and get better. I set goals. My goal is to be one of the worlds best chess players. Chess is the best subject I do at school. Maths, science and sport are my other favourite subjects. I like chess better than computer games because computer games tell you what to do but chess doesn’t which makes it more challenging.

Dancing with Data- Part 1

The graph above of Pat Maths results across the cluster provides a snapshot of what has happened with numeracy Mt. Alexander schools in 2005 and 2006. It is difficult to draw conclusions from the line graph.


But when we combine stanines into low(1+2+3), medium(4+5+6), and high (7+8+9), and plot a column graph clearer and interesting trends begin to emerge.


So, what can we say?
It appears there has been some improvement in numeracy across the cluster. Although, we have to be careful here. We’re comparing two different groups, and there are no isolated or control variables. On their own we can’t be too confident of these results meaning anything definate.
Harry and I have enrolled in the Graduate Certificate for Educational Research Methods and are understanding the fascinating complexities of educational research- a unique blend of scientific(quantitative) and humanistic(qualitative) approaches.
But, here is the strength of the humanistic approach: these graphs have ‘shone a torch’ on an area for further investigation.
By conducting interviews, compiling vignettes, recording teacher observation, parent comments, & tutor observations we might begin to draw a picture about what specifically in our program is happening with student learning. It’s often through qualitative approaches we find the unexpected, discover both subtleties and complexitites within education.
And from that, ascertain what contribution regular chess playing has on learning outcomes.
The moral to the story: its not always the graph that tells us entirely what’s happening, but understanding what’s happening in classrooms that gave us the graph in the first place.