Teaching and learning in Distance Education: an exploratory study from the perspective of tutorial practices

• Autor(a) principal: Santo, Eniel do Espirito
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/16
• topic: Distance education; Tutor; Tutor practice; Pedagogical mediation; Educação a Distância; Tutoria; Prática tutorial; Mediação pedagógica.; Educación a distancia; tutoría; Práctica tutorial; Mediación pedagógica.

Distance Education (DE) constitutes a teaching modality rapidly expanding worldwide. It accounts with a polyteaching team, often composed of a teacher course content, trainer, instructor and several tutors who work face-t-face at a Distance Education On-site Center or online in the Learning Virtual Environments (LVE). This research aims to study the main successful tutorial practices implemented in the context of distance education in two higher education institutions, identifying its theoretical foundation and relevant approaches in order to propose principles that may benchmark the tutorial practices in different contexts. It is a descriptive exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, using as data collection procedures an online survey and a participatory research, carried out in two higher education institutions located in Brazil. From among the findings, it is emphasized that in the sample of 60 surveyed tutors have a modal age of 26.7 years old, with 3.2 experience years as weighted average; 71.7% (43) have a postgraduate degree (specialization level); 61.7% (37) had participated above two continuing education courses in the last two years. The surveyed tutors have a weighted average of 108.7 students supervised and 80% (48) tutors use to answer the student’s solicitations up to 24h. The most used tutorial practices by surveyed tutors are the inaugural lectures, 58.3% (35); seminars and conferences, 43.3% (26); study groups, 35% (21) and revision classes, 21.7% (13). The study concludes that the principles should guide the tutorial mediation practice in DE is related with the establishment of affective and educational relationship with the student; the diversification of the tutorial practice; the quick feedback to students demands; monitoring the activities of students and regular participation of the tutor in continuing education programs in distance education.