ATI heads to the NHSA 41st Annual Head Start Conference and Expo

Join us in southern California for the largest national event devoted to the Head Start and Early Head Start communities – providers of lasting benefits to more than a million children and their families.  ATI will be exhibiting at booth #217 and we invite you to discover the Galileo difference.  
 
New additions to the educational management system to be shown at the Expo include:

• empirically established expected growth rates for children from birth through 5 years in multiple areas of learning such as language, physical development and health, and social and emotional development. Using the growth rates, evaluate whether your program’s children are meeting growth expectations and whether learning opportunities need to be adjusted to promote growth.
• expanded Galileo activities designed specifically for toddlers. The full range of classroom activities, combined with Galileo reports, offer teachers time-saving tools for incorporating developmentally appropriate learning opportunities into their weekly lesson plans. The toddler activities are in addition to the existing curriculum activities for children 3 through 5 years of age.
• translated curriculum resources in Spanish with hundreds of enhanced activities to share with children at home. The activities include learning opportunities in 11 developmental domains and are designed for easy, at-home learning.
• extended National Portrait of Child Outcomes where Head Start and now Early Head Start programs join together, pool their data, and share information with the public about children's learning and development.
• included video recordings within Galileo support teacher’s anecdotal notes and observations, increasing credibility with multi-method documentation.

Galileo Pre-K Online from ATI provides educators and other stakeholders a complete assessment, curriculum, and reporting system that links assessment, planning, individualization and program progress for children birth through 5-years-old. ATI’s patented technology offers innovative, research-based, multi-method, customized assessment and curriculum tools that assist educators meet local, state, and federal requirements. Galileo Pre-K Online allows for assessment through observation in the child’s learning environment, one-on-one observation, samples of children’s work, and parent input. This broad range of formats accommodates the ways children from diverse backgrounds express their competencies and helps provide a meaningful portrait of each child’s development. Ongoing assessment and monitoring of progress help educators determine if success is underway or if intervention is needed.

Learn what's new about Galileo Pre-K Online, professional development offerings, or contact a field services coordinator for a Galileo Overview.

New Design for ATI Comprehensive Benchmark Assessments Series

ATI is offering two different assessment series for Common Core State Standards for 2014-15. One version will assess the same set of standards outlined in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) end-of-year blueprints.  The other version will assess the same set of standards outlined in the Smarter Balanced end-of-year blueprints. Each set of assessments will consist of five tests including a pretest, three benchmark assessments, and a posttest. These tests will all assess the same set of standards. Districts may choose to use all of or any combination of these five tests to chart growth and Common Core State Standards mastery throughout 2014-15.

Instructional effectiveness (IE) versions of the pretests and posttests are also available. ATI recommends that districts and charters implementing instructional effectiveness initiatives with the goal of assessing student growth over the entire year use the instructional effectiveness pretests and posttests. If desired, school districts and charters may automatically pull the results of ATI’s Categorical Growth Analyses evaluating student growth from an IE Pretest to an IE Posttest directly into ATI’s score compiler. This enables districts and charters to easily combine student growth data, teacher observation or rating scale data, and other data required for teacher performance classification into a staff score compiler.

All ATI assessments are designed to maximize reliability and provide the most precise estimates of student ability and growth. In support of this goal, the majority of items included on ATI assessments have a successful history of performance and established Item Response Theory (IRT) item parameters (i.e., discrimination, difficulty, and guessing). In order to accurately assess students of all abilities, ATI assessments typically include items with a range of difficulties. Pretests and IE pretests represent a special case since these assessments are typically administered prior to students receiving instruction related to the assessed standards. For pretests and IE pretests, ATI intentionally selects easier items that are more appropriate for the students’ current level of performance and will provide the most accurate estimates of their current ability. In the past, easier items were sometimes drawn from prior-grade-level content; however, in 2014-15, all items, including easier items, will be drawn from current-grade-level content.

Karyn White, M.A., Educational Management Services Director

Ready for Success in Implementing the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards - Complimentary Arizona Seminar

Mark your calendars for April 30 at 8:30 a.m. MST. Queen Creek Unified School District and ATI will co-host Ready for Success in Implementing the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards (ACCRS). This statewide seminar will focus on the use of innovative technology and state-of-the-art research to facilitate locally designed Arizona College and Career Ready Standards initiatives designed to facilitate full integration of assessment, reporting, and instruction. 

With the seminar focus on the implementation of the ACCRS and the ways in which ATI, school districts and charter schools in Arizona are planning for implementation success, the seminar will address key questions including:

• What kinds of technological innovations are available to assist us in facilitating the full integration of ACCRS aligned assessment, reporting and instruction?
• How can we enhance instructional efficiency and instructional effectiveness as we transition toward full implementation of the ACCRS?
• How can ACCRS aligned differentiated instruction be implemented to facilitate the mastery of specific standards?
• What are the most effective ways to introduce new technology-enhanced item types within the context of instruction and assessment?
• In what ways can technology help facilitate new approaches to curriculum development and instructional practices in alignment to the ACCRS?
• What kinds of research-to-practice initiatives are needed to support effective implementation of the ACCRS?

The seminar will provide an up-close look at innovations in Galileo technology and research initiatives designed to support implementation of the ACCRS.  A panel discussion comprised of leaders from Arizona Charter School Association, Gilbert Public Schools Curriculum Team, Scottsdale Unified School District, and Queen Creek Unified School District will share their approaches to ACCRS implementation along with their insights and successes. 

Register today.  Learn more.

ATI Strategic Partnerships

ATI approaches work with school districts and early childhood programs as a partnership. The partnership conceives of educational problem solving as a collaborative venture involving all of the stakeholders in the educational process. Through the partnership, ATI maintains a consistent and collaborative approach to support educational initiatives as they relate to Galileo implementation, training, and adaptation to program and district needs over time.

ATI is dedicated to pioneering new partnerships and strengthening ongoing partnerships with leaders and organizations in the areas of education, research, technology, and state and federal public policy. These partnerships form the foundation for effective implementation of educational reform in schools, districts, and statewide initiatives.

There is an important benefit of ATI’s strategic partnership with other technology companies like eInstruction, SMART Technology, and Promethean.  Client districts who use technology created by our partners are able to receive classroom input device driver updates sooner.  As a result of the partnerships, vendors are able to use working code provided by ATI to test Galileo functionality within their driver updates prior to release.

To learn more about ATI’s strategic partnerships, see the ATI website at: http://www.ati-online.com/ati/ATIPartners.html.