EDLD+5370+Reflections+on+the+assignments+in+EDLD+5333+Leadership+for+Accountability

__**Self-Assessment**__ Completing the assignments in this course helped me to gain an understanding of how schools arrive at their plan for improving themselves. I knew that we had committees that had meetings and made these plans, but I had no previous knowledge of what was involved in making the decisions. The information that I used in completing the assignments in this course was information that is never provided to the teachers or discussed with the faculty at my campus. Until this course I had never heard of the AEIS report. Being introduced to this new information really made me attentive when completing the assignments because I now had information about my students that I did not have before. I could see some of the areas that my students may be having trouble in.

__**Learn as a Learner**__ Based on what I learned from the AEIS report, I was able to create a collaboration between the science and math departments at my school. These were the two areas that had the greatest need at my campus. This was beneficial because I teach chemistry at my campus and it involves a lot of math. If the students are able to improve their math skills, then this may improve their performance in my classroom. Since science is an area of weakness at my campus and I am a science teacher, I took great interest in these results. Everytime I learned something new in this course, I shared it with my colleagues at my campus. Some were interested, but some were not.

__**Lifelong Learning Skills**__ The information I gained in this course gave me insight on what areas I can possibly address in order to improve student performance in certain subgroups. I created a plan, using released TAKS test, that would possibly help improve student performance on this test. We made copies of these test and study guides available in pdf format on the wikis and websites of teachers. We also included an interactive version which many students seemed to enjoy. We went through each test and answered every question with the students in order to better help them understand how to approach each of the types of questions being asked. Wikis and blogs were also created in case a student had any questions that may arise outside of the classroom setting.

One of my main concerns is at what point should this be started. It would seem that this should be started at an early age. By the time I get them in class, which is in the 10th grade, it may be too late for many.