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Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

Introduction

Classroom management is a very crucial factor in an educational

institution. Several tasks comprise classroom management, such as: plotting the

resources, capacity of every classroom, arranging of class schedules, and the ratio

of the number of teachers to the students, the number of population to be

accepted every academic year (Ed Glossary, 2014). The most complex of these

tasks is academic scheduling which generally refers to institutional activities that

support delivery of subjects and academic programs. It is a complex process that

lies at the center of operations in a school head’s office (Usman, 2016). However,

successful classroom management is subjected to so much pressure that, more

often than not, results to inefficient and overlapping schedule of outputs and

thus need re-scheduling (Johnston, 2021).

Samar College Elementary School is an educational institution which

offers basic education services to its clientele, more particularly to the

community of the Samar Island. The school regularly operates starting from pre-

enrolment period to the end of the academic year. Some of the activities that

teachers and department heads do before the start of classes include:

arrangement of class schedules and teachers’ load, settlement of classroom use

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for the students and faculty, in the Basic Education Department. These activities

require physical strength and time.

However, the school uses the manual way in the preparation and

submission of class schedules to the school’s enrollment system and submission

of computed grades. For example, the school’s current scheduling method - does

not really help in scheduling classes efficiently because of undetermined number

of students, availability of resources and, rapid shifted of manpower. This

method still needs an expert user to configure the task and do it in a timely

manner.

The use of this study’s Classroom Management Using Expert System

(CMES) in Samar College will help keep track of the available resources, project

the total number of population to be accommodated upon enrollment, auto-

generate class schedules, upload class schedules to the enrollment system, and

automated grading system.

The CMES is important in distributing the resources needed thoroughly

and correctly. Nowadays, there are several solutions or applications that help in

generating a classroom management system with the help of artificial

intelligence. Some of these methods that are available are expert system, genetic

algorithm, and fuzzy logic. Each method has its own way of performing a

solution.

Classroom Management using Expert System(CMES) is a software that

aims to assist Samar College’s Faculty of Elementary and Junior High School
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Departments in scheduling a teacher’s program, generating class schedules,

uploading generated schedule to Samar College enrollment system, projecting

the total student population, downloading lists of enrolled students per section,

and importing class schedules to teachers’ portable class record.

This system conforms to the school policies and national standards of

classroom management in the elementary and secondary levels. This system also

used a user-friendly graphical interface. The use of CMES in Elementary and

Secondary Department would provide convenience to the school heads as the

system will save them from tedious manual job and laborious task. This system

would also augment the school’s productivity because of the reduced time they

would need to allot and consume in the class management of students and

teachers, giving them more time to work on other important matters.

Therefore, the researcher of this study stands very optimistic that the final

output of this Class Management using Expert System would be very useful to

Samar College’s elementary and secondary levels’ school heads.

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to develop and evaluate the Classroom Management

using Expert System(CMES), a software that would assist Samar College’s

Faculty of Elementary and Junior High School Departments.

It specifically attained the following:

1. Develop a system with the following features:

1.1 schedules of a teacher’s program;

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1.2 schedules of classes;

1.3 uploads schedule to Samar College enrollment system

1.4 projects total student population;

1.5 downloads list of enrolled students per section, and

1.6 imports class schedules to teachers’ portable class record;

2. Evaluate the abovementioned features of the developed system along

these system quality attributes:

2.1 functionality;

2.2 reliability;

2.3 usability;

2.4 efficiency;

2.5 maintainability, and

2.6 portability

Conceptual Framework

This section presents the conceptual consideration in developing the

system. Figure 1 below represents the three dimensions of the conceptual

paradigm: input, process, and output.

The first stage includes gathering of primary inputs from Samar College’s

Elementary and Junior High School departments of in order to develop the

application. System requirements, which basically include the infrastructures

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needed for the development, were considered. Other external resources were

also considered.
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Figure 1. The Conceptual Framework of the Study

The second stage is process phase. The System Development Life Cycle

(SDLC) Rapid Application Development (RAD) model, which is a conceptual

model used in project management, was adopted in this study. Specifically, the

system used the rule-based type of an expert system to determine the success of

the algorithm implementation through coding and logic programming.

The last stage, the output phase, is the development of the system, the

Classroom Management using Expert System (CMES) for Elementary and Junior

High School Departments.

Significance of the Study

The results of the study provide advantages to the Samar College

administration as well as the students, faculty, school heads, and coordinators,

likewise, future researchers are believed to benefit from this study. Specifically,

this study is significant to the following stakeholders:

School Administration. With this project, the administrators of Samar

College can provide improved quality service to its stakeholders which would

also be beneficial for accreditation purposes.

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School Heads. The proposed computerized scheduling system could

provide the school heads and the coordinators with reliable faculty loading and

class scheduling system

Teachers. Conflicts on class schedules of teachers could be minimized. In

one-way or another they could be used this in every year to lessen papers that

were used when it comes to schedules.

Students. Changes in schedules which cause the delay of regular classes

could be minimized with the proposed computerized scheduling system, they

could easily access class schedules even without going or visiting the school,

very timely for during the conduct of the study amidst pandemic.

Future Researchers. This study is beneficial to future researchers who

plan to delve on studies similar with this research. This could serve as their

reference and could provide them with necessary inputs in case they opt to work

on modifications or updates on this study.

Scope and Delimitation

This software is mainly developed for Samar College to manage and

establish a well-organized class management. The departments that are involved

are Elementary and Junior High School Departments. This project was

developed in a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and used data, resources,

and subjects for the academic year 2019-2020. It used the C# programming as the

code generation and SQL light as the database management.

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Definition of Terms

In order to provide clearer understanding for the readers of this study, the

following terms are conceptually and operationally defined:

Algorithm. Conceptually, this term is defined as the process or set of rules

to follow in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a

computer (Oxford Dictionary). Operationally, this term is defined as the rules

used in the system development to come up with the proposed project.

Auto generated. This term is defined as a computer algorithm to

automatically create query (Oxford Dictionaries). Operationally, this term is

defined as the automatic generating of class schedule by the system.

Class Management. Conceptually, this term is defined as the wide variety

of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organized

(www.edglorassy.org). Operationally, this term is defined as the project title by

automation of the existing system.

C#. Conceptually, this term is defined as a programing language

developed by Microsoft (www.techterms.com). Operationally, this term refers to

the programing language in developing this project.

End-user. This is conceptually defined as the person who actually uses a

particular product. Operationally, this term pertains to the principal and the

coordinators who would use the system.

Expert system. Conceptually, this term is defined as a piece of software

that is programmed using artificial intelligence techniques (Oxford Dictionaries).

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Operationally, this term is defined as the governing body of the system to

produce AI output.

Forward chaining. Conceptually, this term refers to a scenario where the

AI has been provided with a specific problem and must "work forwards" to

figure out how to solve the set problem (https://www.webopedia.com/).

Operationally, this term is defined as initial data that the user input which must

be forwarded to the system to solve a problem.

Inference engine. Conceptually, this term refers to a component of a

system that applies logical rules to the knowledge base to deduce new

information (https://www.webopedia.com/). Operationally, this term is defined

as the logical rules in a system.

Optimization. Conceptually, this term refers to the action of making the

best or the most effective use of a situation or resources (Oxford Dictionary).

Operationally, this term is defined as the effective utilization of resources.

Rule-Based Model. The term is associated with computer programming

algorithm to solve a problem (https://www.webopedia.com/). Operationally,

this term is defined as the series of code sets to the system to solve the problem

automatically.

REST

Scheduling. This is the process of arranging, controlling and optimizing

work and workloads in a production process or manufacturing process

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(WikiPedia.com). Operationally, this term pertains to the process of inputting the

data of class schedules.

Software Development Life Cycle. Conceptually and operationally, this

term is defined as the process of developing a software (www.stackify.com).

SQL light. Conceptually, this term is defined as an in-process library that

implements a self-contained, zero-configured, server less, and transactional SQL

database engine ( https://www.techopedia.com/). Operationally, this term

refers to the back end of the system.

Timetable. Conceptually, this term is defined as schedule (something) to

take place at a particular time (Miriam Dictionary). Operationally, this is a table

for coordinating students, teachers, rooms, and other resources

Universal Windows Platform. Conceptually and conceptually, this term

is defined as the API developed by Microsoft to help develop universal apps that

run on windows 10.

Utilization. This is the action of making practical and effective use of

something (Oxford Dictionaries). In this study, this term refers to the period of

time when their quality is realized in practical use to achieve intended objectives

and to support accomplishment of storage and maintenance.