Building sustainable learning spaces with industry partners through reciprocal mentoring

Abstract

This research aims to address current problems regarding availability of pre-service teacher education internship opportunities through the development of an ongoing and sustainable relationship with local primary school teachers and students. The culmination of the research will ultimately result in a reciprocal-mentoring model being developed which will create a mutually beneficial partnership between an Australian University (teacher education students and academic staff) and local primary school teachers and students. A Collective Community learning platform has been built and implemented which has enabled all stakeholders to work together on ICT-rich learning activities. The research has involved four very distinct phases. However, this paper reports on Phase 3: University Readiness of the larger study. This phase involved primary school students working with teacher education students, teachers and academic staff on an ICT activity for the day. The findings reveal that reciprocal mentoring can be mutually beneficial to all involved.