PEDAGOGICAL COMPETENCIES AND THEIR CHALLENGES Maria das Graças Freitas Santos

Abstract

For the development of the online tutor's teaching practice, the development of pedagogical competence is of utmost importance. The tutor must have or develop pedagogical strategies to meet the needs of each student, and must know how to use the virtual learning environment correctly, as well as media resources, in order to facilitate collaborative learning. This study relates the pedagogical competences of a distance tutor with the challenges required by Distance Education. To this end, a questionnaire was applied to the students and to the tutors themselves of a distance training course. The results were converted into graphs and analyzed quantitatively. It was possible to conclude that the tutors who participated in the research seek to keep themselves updated, investing in their academic training with improvement and specialization courses. Furthermore, according to the students of the course, the tutors encouraged the exchange of experience and research, used media resources integrated with the content, demonstrated mastery of the content, induced active participation and contributed to the development of student autonomy. Thus, it can be concluded that a tutor who has pedagogical competence encourages and provokes his students, expanding discussions in the virtual environment and making knowledge deeper.