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Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Engineering (OMSTE)

Galileo Pilot Project Progress Summary 2006-2007

Title IID, fund code 164 provided funding for seven districts to participate in the Galileo Pilot project in FY 2007. These seven districts were Chelsea, Chicopee, Fitchburg, Leominster, Lowell, New Bedford and Pittsford. As part of their applications for continuation in FY 08, they submitted data into a MassONE survey. The data below is aggregated from these submissions.

Summary of Professional Development

More than 420 educators participated in professional development in this year of the grant. Of these, 350 were teachers. These are unduplicated headcounts; some of these teachers and administrators participated in more than 1 course or workshop. The professional development activities totaled more than 6,220 staff hours.

Face-to-face workshops were the most common mode of professional development, with 494 participants accounting for a total of 4,793 staff hours. All five of the courses offered were face-to-face and had a total of 59 participants. Seventy-five educators participated in online workshops for a total of 1,125 hours. Coaching and mentoring provided approximately 600 hours of PD in the Galileo districts.

Galileo Usage Data

Students
On average, three or four assessments were administered using Galileo during the year for each participating district in grades 6, 7 and 8. Half of the districts also gave 3 or 4 assessments in grade 5. Fitchburg and Leominster included grades three and four, with three assessments at each of these levels.

A total of 15,790 students took 82 different benchmark assessments in the seven pilot districts. With the one-to-one laptops in Pittsfield, 1,537 students were able to take Galileo Benchmarks online. Lowell was also able to provide sufficient computer access for students to take formative assessments online. Fitchburg and Leominster students did so on a limited basis (175 students). A total of 5,671 students were able to do at least one formative or benchmark assessment online.

Teachers and Administrators
A total of 489 teachers used the system. Of these, 319 entered the system at least 4 times, with 81 logging into it over 20 times. Seventy-eight administrators accessed Galileo, over half of them used it more than four times.

Summary of Expenditures

Approximate expenditures reported in the MassONE survey totaled $263,000. The breakdown is shown in the table below.

The largest amount of this money was for professional development, over $119,000 about 45%. Less than 15% ($23,000) was used for hardware, including desktop and laptop computers, projectors, graphing calculators, and scanner/printers. Galileo subscriptions accounted for over $50,000 of the total software costs of approximately $66,000. The remaining 16% (about $42,000) was for evaluation ($22,000), project coordination/administration ($12,000) and the balance for supplies, travel and other indirect costs ($8,000).