Score Your Own Teach on Ten Lines

You cannot watch yourself teach. You are too busy doing it, and the curse of knowledge makes your own explanations sound clearer to you than they are to anyone else. So after the game, you need a way to look back that does not depend on how the night felt.

That is the Self-Assessment: ten lines, one to five each, scored by you. It takes three minutes, and it is half of your capstone.

The ten lines

Each line is a skill from the program. Read them as questions.

1. Hook. Did you open with a sentence that gave them a role and a goal?
2. Goal. Did you say how the game ends and how you win before any other rule?
3. Turn demo. Did you show one turn with real pieces, saying “you,” instead of describing one?
4. Gotcha. Did you name the one rule that surprises people, and say it again when it happened?
5. Holding back. Did rare rules wait until they came up?
6. Pace. Did the teach take under five minutes before the first move?
7. Checks. Did you ask “What questions do you have?” and wait for an answer?
8. Open round. Was the first round a safe place to try things and ask for help?
9. Blowout control. Was the newcomer still in the game at the end?
10. Close. Did you ask what they liked, and leave with the next game named?

A five on any line means you did it fully and it worked. A three means you did it partly. A one means you skipped it. Score against the mark, not against your effort.

Score fast, and score honest

Score within an hour of the game ending. Memory is kind to teachers. By the next morning, the long pause before the first move has shrunk, and the rule you forgot has become one you “saved for later.” Score while you can still remember the details.

Two habits keep the numbers true.

• Use the program’s numbers where they exist. Pace has a mark: under five minutes before the first move. Blowout control has one too: the newcomer is never out of the game before it ends. If you did not time the teach, start a timer next time and score pace a three until then.
• When torn between two scores, take the lower one. Nobody sees this sheet but you, so there is nothing to gain from a generous score and a great deal to gain from an accurate one.

Worked example: a scored Ticket to Ride teach

Picture a teach of Ticket to Ride to a coworker who does not play. Here is how the scoring goes.

• Hook: 4. “We are building railroads across North America.” Good, but it had no fun in it.
• Goal: 5. Routes, tickets, and the longest railroad, in one breath, before anything else.
• Turn demo: 5. You claimed a real 3-train blue route with three blue cards in your hand.
• Gotcha: 3. You said unfinished tickets cost points, but you never said it again. At the end, they lost 9 points to a ticket and looked surprised.
• Holding back: 5. Double routes waited until someone looked at one.
• Pace: 4. Six minutes, by the timer.
• Checks: 2. You said “Any questions?” and started before anyone could answer.
• Open round: 3. Hands stayed closed, but you thought aloud about your own first move.
• Blowout control: 4. You won by 22, but the newcomer finished a long ticket and was in it until the end.
• Close: 3. You asked their favorite moment, but did not name a next game.

Total: 38 out of 50. A solid teach. But the total is the least useful number on the page.

Fix the lowest line first

Look for the lowest score, not the total. Here it is checks, at a two. That one line explains another: a newcomer who had a chance to ask about the tickets might not have lost those 9 points.

So the plan for the next teach is one sentence: “After the turn demo, ask ‘What questions do you have?’ and count to five in my head.” Not ten fixes. One. Next teach, score again, and the lowest line will probably have moved somewhere new. That is how a good teach becomes a great one, one line at a time.

Keep every sheet you score. Three in a row show you your habits, the lines that stay low no matter the game. Those are the ones worth a whole evening of practice.