AIMSWeb

Benjamin Ditkowsky, Ph.D.

Benjamin Ditkowsky received his Ph.D. in the area of Special Education from the University of Oregon in 2002. He has taught courses in instruction, characteristics of special education students, and assessment. Ben has supervised and evaluated pre-service teachers, coached teachers in the field, provided staff development in data-based, decision-making, and he has collaborated with school staff in grant writing activities. Ben has worked as an educational consultant, a behavior specialist, and as a classroom teacher in both special and general classrooms. Currently, he is working as the Director of Assessment and Research in Wheeling Community Consolidated District 21 in Illinois. His current focus is working with school administrators, general and special education teachers to develop S.M.A.R.T. targets for students and to use formative assessment data to make decisions about instruction in an effort to improve outcomes for students.

Gary Germann

Gary Germann is retired from education. He holds degrees in regular education and special education and has taught at both the training and K-12 levels. He was the Director of the Pine County Special Education Cooperative when it developed a nationally recognized data based special education system. For the last ten years he was the director of the St. Croix River Education District. In this capacity he led member districts' efforts to develop a continuous database of all student's academic performance and the electronic data management system necessary to manage the database. He is the author of several book chapters and has published in professional journals as well as presented in numerous local, state and national forums.

John Hintze, Ph.D.

Dr. Hintze is an associate professor of school psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has been using curriculum-based measurement for 15 years, teaches courses in their use, and has trained numerous school-based professionals nationally.

Steve Jennen

Steve Jennen has been developing software for over 20 years. He holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics and has worked at all levels in the software industry. He was previously Product Development Manager for a high-tech company designing and managing software and hardware server products that generated over $10 million in annual revenue. He was most recently Chief Technical Officer for a successful and profitable Internet consulting company where he led the development of web based software applications and set up the company's 24x7 data center.

Mark R. Shinn, Ph.D.

Mark R. Shinn, Ph.D. is Chief Scientist for AIMSweb products. He is a nationally recognized Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and frequent progress monitoring expert. He has edited the 2 major books on CBM and has published over 75 journal articles and book chapters on CBM, progress monitoring, and use of formative evaluation in general and special education programs. He also routinely consults with schools, school districts, and state departments of education through out the country. He taught school psychologists, and general and special educators for 19 years at the University of Oregon and recently joined the School Psychology Program at National Louis University in Evanston, IL.

Benjamin Silberglitt, Ph.D.

Benjamin Silberglitt received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2003, having completed the University's school psychology training program. His areas of emphasis were in applied uses of assessment data to improve instruction, systems-level research, and in new approaches to assessment of social-emotional development in early childhood. He has taught several undergraduate and graduate-level courses in statistics, assessment, and applied behavioral analysis in education. Currently, Dr. Silberglitt serves as the Outcomes Manager for the St. Croix manages the research, assessment, and evaluation efforts of the St. Croix River Education District's five member districts. His current focus is on helping teachers and administrators to collect and use assessment data systematically, to help inform and improve instruction and intervention toward better academic and social outcomes.