A Havelock North teacher has won a coveted scholarship to study in America, where she hopes to learn how local schools can best use student information.
Schools have endless data about test scores, exam results, and reading and writing proficiency, Ngaire Addis, who has won a Fulbright Scholarship to study how
schools in the USA are using this information, says.
Ms Addis, who is completing her doctorate at Massey University, has received a grant to study at Harvard for three months. She will be researching how mathematics achievement data is used by leaders of American high schools to improve teaching and learning.
"Schools are swamped with data," she said. "It's important that we know where students are placed so we can do our best for them."
The Massey professor supervising her doctorate suggested she apply for the scholarship.
"I flew to Wellington and saw all these intelligent people and thought 'they've got the wrong person'," Ms Addis said.
In March next year, she will look at what teachers in New York and Boston are doing with the data they have been collecting for about 10 years.
"I can't really believe it yet," she said. "I had applied for a teaching job in Dubai but this is much more exciting. I couldn't do it without the support of the whole school and my family."
Ms Addis, who has worked at Havelock North High School for eight years, was responsible for collecting and analysing data and is assistant head of maths.
She reports on how the school is doing overall, as well as making sure students get the individual attention they need.
Not all schools have someone in that role, but Ms Addis said they should because with National Standards coming in and changes to NCEA there was even more information available.
What a school did with that information could make all the difference to helping students improve. She credited school principal Bill Adams with being forward thinking and aiming to use data to improve the school.
It had already helped the school to achieve one of the best numeracy results for Hawke's Bay and one of the highest scholarship rates in the Central Region.
Ms Addis hoped to develop a best practice model for New Zealand from schools in America.
