Martin De Ruyter/Stuff
Daniel Wilson, principal of Nayland College is one of 20 school leaders from around the world taking part in a study tour in the United States, covering topics like global indigenous education models.
How schools overseas handle things like vaping, truancy and artifical intelligence are among learnings principal of Nelson’s Nayland College, Daniel Wilson hopes to bring back to New Zealand from a study tour in the US.
Topics lined up for the cultural exchange were “incredibly relevant” to education in Aotearoa, including the latest trends in educational technology, and lessons from indigenous education models in other countries, he said.
Wilson has been chosen as one of 20 school leaders from around the world who are about to take part in the five-week Study of the US Institutes for Secondary Educators, a programme funded by the US Government.
Spokesperson for the US Embassy in Wellington, Wes Jeffers said the embassy received a large number of applicants from across New Zealand for the programme every year, and the US State Department regularly chose a representative from Aotearoa, showing the strengths of New Zealand candidates.
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Participants would spend four weeks in California – attending seminars facilitated by community leaders and university faculty at California State University, Chico, and visiting sites including schools and education programmes, and the state capitol Sacramento.
The last week would be spent on the opposite side of America, in Chicago, Illinois and Washington D.C.
Topics covered ranged from immigration and education, to bilingual best practice and gender perspectives in education.
Wilson said he planned to ask many questions about a number of issues affecting schools.
“I’ll ask about attendance, I’ll ask about vaping … poverty, the cost of living crisis.
“It’s always interesting to see how different places are handling it.”
New Zealand had “a lot to share” about indigenous education, said Wilson, a member of Education New Zealand – a Government agency that promoted New Zealand education internationally, and ran scholarships for people coming into New Zealand to study and to help New Zealanders study overseas.
“But there might be things that other countries are doing … that might be of benefit to New Zealand or Nayland College.”
Participants could choose an in-depth research project, with Wilson interested in technology in education, including the impact of AI, which he said was currently being used as “an amazing teaching tool” at his school to help with things like lesson planning.
“As an example, if there’s a senior essay that’s due, the teachers might put the essay question into an AI generator, and then use the essay that comes out of that to mark as a class, and look at the things that it’s picked up as correct or incorrect.”
While students elsewhere had been reported to use AI to cheat during assessments, by using AI software that produced essays, it made no sense to fight against using the technology in schools, he said.
“It’s something that we should be really looking at the positives of … and how we can utilise that in our educational system.”
Wilson said he was excited about the chance the study tour offered to lift himself out of the day-to-day operations of the school.
“I think it’s a really important opportunity to … focus on the bigger picture, do some amazing networking, get to know what’s happening in other countries, what the best practice trends are.”