Switching roles: student mentors help teachers use ICT pedagogically

The literature provides clear evidence of a number of key barriers to teachers being able to enhance their students' learning by integrating ICT into their teaching. These barriers include not knowing how to use technologies and also a perception of a lack of usefulness of technology. The literature also noted a gender barrier which identified female teachers as being less likely to use technologies in their pedagogies than their male colleagues. Also, teachers are adult learners and have special needs associated with adult learning such as the need for individual and personalised learning programmes delivered at a time of their choosing. One approach to meet those special needs and overcome the barriers was through reverse-mentoring which is the use of students to help their teachers with ICT issues in a timely and relevant manner. The benefits of reverse-mentoring have not been widely explored in the literature. This study provided evidence that reverse-mentoring programmes delivered timely and relevant help for the participant teachers. The study also investigated the extent the reverse-mentored programmes particularly assisted female teachers' uptake of ICT in their teaching