Need Assistance?

ATI provides various avenues for our users to get help within Galileo® K-12 and Galileo® Pre-K.

Help Icon
ATI has recently introduced widget technology within the Galileo K-12 environment. Widgets display information graphically, such as charts or tables, and invite you to act upon the presented data in various ways, such as quickly drilling down into further information or completing information in a form. When you click the Help icon located within a widget, a reference guide opens in a new window. The guide walks you through utilization of that widget.

Help Menu
From every page within the Galileo application, you can access the Help link on the gold menu bar in the header. Galileo’s Help menu provides users with step-by-step directions on using Galileo.

Within the Galileo Pre-K environment, additional resources are available to support teachers and program staff in using the Galileo Pre-K Online Curriculum. Resources in the Help menu include:

• Galileo Pre-K Online Curriculum Guidebook, a comprehensive resource for teachers.
• Galileo Pre-K Online Curriculum Materials List, including a checklist for classroom materials recommended for use with the Galileo G3 classroom activities.
• Galileo Pre-K Online Curriculum Storybook List, a list of storybooks recommended for use in the Galileo G3 classroom activities, including recommendations for Spanish and bilingual storybooks.
• Galileo Pre-K Online Curriculum Creating and Using Interest Centers handout, to guide teachers as they create interest centers in their classroom.
• Galileo G3 Assessment Scale Alignment with the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework and Galileo G3 Assessment Scales Alignment with Your State document (as of today there are 37 state alignments plus the Common Core alignment for Math and English/Language Arts.

Tech Support
The Tech Support page may be accessed from every page within the Galileo application; you just need to click the Tech Support link on the gold menu bar in the header. On this page there is additional supporting documentation as well as a Technical Support phone number and electronic form. The form can be completed if the issue is not urgent; ATI personnel will contact you within a business day.

Within the Galileo environment, additional resources are available to support teachers and administrative staff in using the Galileo. Resources in the Tech Support menu include:

• Galileo Pre-K and Galileo K-12: Startup Support Kit
• Galileo K12:  Building Reliable and Valid Benchmarks,  Online Test Administration Manual for District-Wide Assessments,  and Offline Test Administration Manual for District-Wide Assessments

Forum
The Professional Development Forum provides all Galileo users the opportunity to share their experiences, ask questions, and obtain professional development assistance (training manuals, quick reference guides, and videos) from experts at ATI. This is an electronic, user-driven discussion board. Registration is free and only takes a minute. The forum creates an online community for educators, where ideas can be shared and support can be found. The Forum may be accessed from every page within the Galileo application; you just need to click the Forum link on the gold menu bar in the header.

E-Mail
You may always contact ATI via e-mail and ATI personnel will contact you within a business day (or even sooner!)

General questions may be directed to support@ati-online.com.

Questions specifically on professional development opportunities can be directed to professionaldevelopment@ati-online.com.

For users who may have data import and/or export questions e-mail galileodataimport@ati-onine.com. 

Phone
You may always contact ATI during regular business hours at 877.358.7616 in the Mountain Standard time zone.

Professional Development Opportunities

ATI’s Professional Development team offers both onsite and online professional development sessions. Professional development session participants receive materials detailing all topics covered in the session. To learn more about the K-12 professional development opportunities, visit http://www.ati-online.com/galileoK12/K12ProfessionalDevelopment.html; Pre-K professional opportunities can be found at http://www.ati-online.com/galileoPreschool/PreProfessionalDevelopment.html. You may also e-mail professionaldevelopment@ati-online.com or call 800.367.4762.

ATI Releases Research Brief: Categorical Growth Analysis – A Method Involving the Repeated-Measure T-Test

ATI releases a research brief summarizing current research on Categorical Growth Analysis, a statistical method involving the repeated-measure t-test written by Sarah Callahan, Ph.D., Research Scientist with ATI.

As part of the growing implementation of instructional effectiveness initiatives, districts and schools have expressed a need for information about the growth of students for which each teacher and principal is responsible. To be useful, student growth must be estimated based on valid, reliable student assessments and categorized via robust statistical approaches. Via the Galileo® K-12 Online Instructional Improvement and Instructional Effectiveness System (IIIES), ATI provides districts/schools with a wide variety of valid, reliable assessments including instructional effectiveness (IE) pretests and posttests as well as integrated statistical approaches designed to provide districts/schools with precise information about student growth.

This research brief describes and illustrates the underlying method for one of the statistical approaches developed by ATI to provide information about student growth, Categorical Growth Analysis. Categorical Growth Analysis enables educators to evaluate growth throughout the year. Information about student growth can be accessed along with information about student achievement in Galileo reports and used to guide professional development, student intervention, and other activities. Categorical Growth Analysis supports a fair, constructive approach to educator evaluation that evaluates educators against a defensible standard while providing every educator with the opportunity to succeed. This brief also summarizes the results of a simulation study evaluating the appropriateness of the method underlying Categorical Growth Analysis for a wide range of possible datasets.

Read the full Research Brief.

ATI will be Exhibiting at the National Head Start Association Conference

ATI will be attending the upcoming National Head Start Association Conference, April 28 through May 2, in National Harbor, Maryland. During the event, ATI will be at Exhibit #321 demonstrating the new features within Galileo Pre-K Online, including:

G3 Technology Scale
School Readiness Scales and reporting tools
Pre-K Parent Center expanded activities for families
Pre-K Parent Center Activity Report
Coming soon: Outcomes Analysis Report

NHSA 40th Annual National Training Conference
Hosted by National Head Start Association (NHSA)
Date: April 28 – May 2
Location: Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland
Conference Info

New Challenges and Solutions Related to Evaluating Educator Effectiveness

Evaluating educator effectiveness has become a major concern across the nation. The fundamental premise underlying this concern is that good teaching and effective educational management carried out in a supportive learning environment ought to produce enhanced learning. The linking of educator evaluation to student learning has changed the nature of educator evaluation in significant ways. The stakes associated with the evaluation process have been raised. Educator evaluation has become more formalized, subjected to greater scrutiny, and extensively controlled by state law. The inclusion of student data has increased the complexity of the evaluation process. Whereas in the past educator evaluation was limited in the main to informal observations, now in many states results of student assessments involving dozens of subjects are becoming or are being considered for inclusion as a required component of the evaluation process. Additional complexity stems from the need to consider multiple data sources for multiple classes of educators in the evaluation initiative. Finally, in order to realize the goal of improving learning through effective instruction, there is a need for dynamic evaluation systems that continually examine the relationships among ratings of educator effectiveness, professional development offerings based on those ratings and measures of student progress. For the past few years, ATI has been working closely with local education agencies to meet the challenges of evaluating educator effectiveness. As a result of this work, ATI has developed a comprehensive Instructional Effectiveness Assessment System.

The system is designed to address several key questions requiring action on the part of local education agencies in order to implement an effective, locally designed educator effectiveness system. These include:

• How do we effectively link educator performance to student learning outcomes? 
• How do we weight and compile multiple data sources for different educators to produce an overall proficiency score? 
• How do we ensure that student performance data is reliable, valid, and useful for measuring growth? 
• How do we ensure that teacher performance data is reliable, valid, and useful for guiding professional development and practice? 
• How do we obtain actionable data throughout the year to inform decision-making?

To address these key questions, the Galileo comprehensive Instructional Effectiveness Assessment System has evolved in ways that now provide local education agencies with:

• Reliable and valid educator rating scales aligned to the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards, the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Educational Leadership Policy Standards, and Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
• Reliable and valid measures of student progress in state-tested subjects;
• Reliable and valid measures of student progress non-state-tested subjects;
• An Evaluation Score Compiler that weights and automatically combines educator effectiveness indicators into a single score. 

Moreover, Galileo uses Item Response Theory (IRT) techniques to validate teacher performance scales and student assessment scales to produce a Proficiency Scale Score and Achievement/Growth Scores, respectively. IRT provides a continuous interval scale score to measure changes in proficiency and student growth over time. And IRT produces indicators of measurement precision including item difficulty, item discrimination and reliability.

If you would like to learn more about the ways in which we are supporting locally designed educator effectiveness initiatives contact us via email or at 877.442.5453 for more information. Also, watch for summer training opportunities that focus on educator effectiveness. Click here to access all current events, seminars, and webinars.

Implementing a Comprehensive Instructional Effectiveness Assessment System

If you missed ATI’s March 26 webinar, Implementing a Comprehensive Instructional Effectiveness Assessment System - don’t worry. The webinar was recorded and the recording is available at the following link.

Click here to watch video.
Click here to access other webinar presentation summary documents.

Linking educator effectiveness to student learning has changed the nature of educator evaluation in significant ways. The fundamental premise underlying this linkage is that good teaching and effective educational management carried out in a supportive learning environment ought to produce enhanced learning. For the past few years, ATI has been working closely with Local Education Agencies to meet the challenges of including student learning in the evaluation of educator effectiveness. As a result of this work, ATI has developed a Comprehensive Instructional Effectiveness Assessment System.

Watch for summer training opportunities that focus on educator effectiveness. Click here to access all current events, seminars, and webinars. Contact your ATI Field Services Coordinator by email or at 877.442.5453 for more information.