Education researchers look abroad to improve NZ

Education researchers look abroad to improve New Zealand schooling

Fulbright New Zealand and the Cognition Institute have selected two researchers from different branches of the education sector for exchanges to the United States of America in 2011 – one a practising teacher and the other a university academic. Ngaire Addis from Havelock North High School and Dr Veronica O’Toole from the University of Canterbury are the two recipients of Fulbright-Cognition Scholar Awards in Education Research for 2011, and will each spend several months in the US conducting research aimed at improving aspects of the schooling system in New Zealand.

Ngaire Addis, a senior teacher at Havelock North High School who is currently completing her doctorate through Massey University, will research how mathematics achievement data is used by leaders of American high schools to improve teaching and learning. New Zealand schools are faced with the new challenge of how to integrate National Standards for Mathematics and Literacy into daily practise with a view to improving student achievement. Ngaire looks forward to tapping into the experiences of school leaders in America, where educational policy and school management are already focused around systems of standards, testing and public reporting of results.

Dr Veronica O’Toole is a lecturer at the University of Canterbury’s School of Educational Studies and Human Development. She will visit two American universities – Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut – to work with experts there and develop a research-informed emotional literacy programme to improve social and emotional wellbeing across whole New Zealand school communities, from school leaders and teachers down to students. She plans to trial a programme in several Christchurch primary schools after returning to New Zealand.

Ngaire and Veronica are the third and fourth Fulbright-Cognition Scholars in Education Research. The first, Jenny Horsley from Victoria University of Wellington, researched American models for increasing representation of ethnic minorities in programmes for gifted children, at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth in Baltimore last year. The second, Mount Albert Primary School principal Enosa Auva’a, is currently at the University of Hawai‘i researching ethnic minority leadership in American schools.

ENDS

© Scoop Media