Social competence

Being an online teacher is to experience changes in the actions and relationships established between the subjects participating in the educational act in the digital classroom; especially for teachers accustomed to face-to-face teaching. As a social act, the teaching and learning process must be developed in an environment that fosters reception and interaction between those who teach and those who learn. Thus, T1´s narrative revealed how to be in the same time and space of the classroom is a reference for the teaching practice, since, without that, it is generated a strangeness in this educator´s acting in the online classroom:

In the common classroom, you plan the class, you enter, you are seeing your students. I really like to walk, to watch the environment. I do not know if it is because of my education, I was a teacher of basic school, a literacy teacher; then I feel the need to see, to look, to walk, to follow “body to body”, closer to my students. In distance education, that is my limitation, because the student is on the other side; I simply see the photo; but some of them do not even put a photo... (T1)

T1 indicated the physical absence of the student as an obstacle to be overcome in online teaching. According to this interviewee, the need to visualize the person who is the student could be supplied by a profile picture, which, according to ^{Carneiro and Nascimento (2012}), is a fundamental resource to establish the affective-social bond between the members of an online classroom; but, as T1 mentioned, not everyone inserts it.

In similar reports, T2 and T5 described how the body constitutes a reference for the development of pedagogical mediation from their experiences with the educational practice realized in the face-to-face classroom:

… you have the opportunity to look into the student’s eyes because the body speaks. The student says ... “Teacher, I get it.” But, you realize, through body language, that is not quite like that. By the image, by the face, you think... “No. Come here. Let me explain it to you again”. The student is more likely to have direct contact and you realize. (T2)

... the student may not say anything, but you see, by his face, whether he likes it or not, if he is assimilating. So, you have this ability to make the diagnosis of the proximal zone, where it is, where you can pull more, or have to go back. So, there’s all that there. In distance education, that’s harder. (T5)

The absence of the face-to-face contact with the student in the online classroom proved to be a factor of instability for these tutors, which is corroborated by ^{Coelho and Tedesco (2017}). The authors agree that the pedagogical mediation in the VLE is a challenge because of the loss of the body language elements in interaction mediated by technology and, since writing-based asynchronous communication tools predominate in most DE programs, distancing between interlocutors can be accentuated.

The reports showed that, from the experience of these teachers, oral and visual communication is the main means for teacher-student interaction in the face-to-face educational practice because of meanings expressed not only by verbal language, but also by non-verbal language. According to T2 and T5, the set represented by ‘said’ and ‘not said’ favors the teacher’s immediate perception of the student’s needs and reactions to what is presented in the pedagogical act, facilitating learning mediation.

However, when seeking new benchmarks for interpersonal relationship in the online classroom, the tutor-teacher must understand that the VLE is a space for the educational act in order to train professionals for the competent exercise of the chosen career and for the responsible citizenship in society. For that formative stage to represent not only a technical-scientific, but also a human growth, it is necessary to have affection, which welcomes and motivates the student to persist in a study mode that demands attitudes such as autonomy, discipline, punctuality and perseverance.

On the other hand, T4 pondered some difficulties regarding the expression of affectivity, despite the training received in the DE program so that the online tutors can be affectionate and spontaneous when dealing with the students:

... it is a big challenge; because if I send a ‘hug’ to the student, I do not know how he interprets it. If I write only ‘regards’, he may think I am being too cold. If I send a ‘hug’, he may think I’m being over affectionate ...[laughs] We try, but I, myself, end up being more formal. If I establish a dialogue, that is, not only the question - the student asks, I answer back and it ends there… If it becomes a dialogue, I end up having more tranquility in talking, even though it is written. Then, I feel more comfortable to send a ‘hug’ or a ‘good luck’ ... (T4)

This report exposed how the spatial-temporal gap in online written interactions, especially in asynchronous tools, could hinder relations and interactions in the VLE, either by the false impression of coldness or sympathy. According to T4´s perception, the approach between the online tutor and the student is facilitated with their “coexistence” in the electronic classroom. This is attested by ^{Lima and Machado (2010}), explaining that the contact between these actors narrows through dialogue, being the proximity evidenced by the use of more affective and informal language in written texts.

In turn, T5 expressed as follows his understanding of the exercise of the authority of the online tutor in educational practices in distance undergraduate courses:

Reflecting on this, I think it would be a question of proposing a reflection. Because the issue of our time is that you have access to a lot of information, but pieces of information do not necessarily become knowledge. A series of data, movies… but you don´t have the time to draw the consequences of that, in other words, the reflection. So, I guess ... That’s why I understand that to gain the respect of the student is not with a low mark, right? In the sense of the pedagogical authority, in the Freirean and dialogical sense... How do you achieve this? When you master the didactic material, when you propose more in-depth questions, so you get away from the common belief... And many students have the interest. So, you have to get out of the common belief, and for that you have to research. You do not have to stay in the magazine, or this or that, in the superficial, the talky-talk… So if this is your choice, I guess it does not add up at all. Or I´m wrong and I´d have to ask the students. But I believe it is with a problematization, deepening the reflection on a theme in the discipline. So I think it’s more in this reflective sense that you can get the student to listen to you and do not go searching the site on the side and listen to what you’re talking about. So it´s more like that. (T5)

This contradiction can reveal a learning process in the search for a path that allows this educator to teach in a dialogic way in the online classroom, which would correspond to the orientation of T5´s personal, academic, experiential and didactic-pedagogical culture (^{TARDIF, 2000}). In this way, it is possible to assume the influence of the experiences of the face-to-face classroom in the online teaching practice. Nevertheless, the position of T5 is that the authority of the online tutor would be the result of his or her acting as a mediator of the knowledge construction, not as an arbiter of correct or wrong resolutions.

It can be admitted that online teaching has led these tutor-teachers to seek a framework that allows them to establish an authentic social bond with the students in mediating teaching and learning in the electronic classroom. Paths to the creation and the maintenance of such a link in an online academic community should be considered, since “[...] social interaction and sense of belonging in the VLE are considered essential factors for the construction of knowledge” (^{COELHO; TEDESCO, 2017}, p. 613). It was evidenced by the analyzed statements that, instead of oral and visual communication, in the electronic classroom, the interaction between online tutors and students has been established through written text, as examined in the sequence.

Linguistic competence

In the search for new parameters of interpersonal relationship and knowledge construction in DE, students’ reading and writing skills appeared as the main reference used by these tutors in mediating the online pedagogical practice. In the impossibility of face-to-face contact, T3 answered that the means to know a student is:

By the textual production and by the answers. First, for the questions. I will use a thought of Rubem Alves, in which he made a paraphrase of the philosopher Wittgenstein. He said this: your questions reveal the lake where you went to quench your thirst. So, by the questions, by the doubts, you get to know your student. When he says... “How´s it going? Can you help me?” But there’s another one that says... “Good afternoon, teacher! How have you been? I have a question.” They are relationships with language, because language also defines you, creates your identity. (T3)

T3 relies on the expression of the students through verbal written language as a means of individualizing them. In pedagogical mediation, that practice can be corroborated by the conception of language as a place of interaction proposed by ^{Koch (2002}); according to which, the subject is a psychosocial being who imprints his identity to the acts of communication in which he participates. Thus, the perception of the world brought by the student when he enters a distance undergraduate course will be preponderant in the quality and depth of his academic reading and writing. For that, it is expected the student is be able to interact with the teaching materials in order to “[...] construct a coherent representation, activating previous knowledge and/ or drawing the possible conclusions for which the text points “(^{KOCH, 2002}, p.18). When T3 alluded to the image created by the mentioned thinkers, the educator signaled that the complexity of the students’ questions in response to the study of the indicated texts can be used by the online tutor as a parameter for pedagogical intervention.

That report also referred to the linguistic competence to be demonstrated by the teacher, using it in the orientation of learning and promoting the understanding and production of written texts in order to mediate interpersonal relationships in the online classroom. In addition, according to ^{Leite (2011}), that intervention should contribute to the linguistic learning of the student so that he does not only explore the didactic materials being studied, but so that he can position himself before its contents, collaborating with the knowledge construction. In such a type of teacher/ student relationship, ^{Koch (2010}) reminds that the written text must be characterized, among others, as planned, elaborated and complete in order to avoid decontextualization before the time distance in the insertions made in the VLE, as punctuated by ^{Saldanha (2012}).

VLE language practices may be associated with another aspect to be considered by the tutor in online pedagogical mediation. The writing and reading skills have been parameters that reveal the referents of the student’s school culture. In addition to the diversity of previous school experiences, online tutors also reported on how they handle the needs of students who may be in different regions of a continental country, as shown below.

Intercultural competence

Presential education and online education represent specific school cultures. Whereas, in the first one, there are still traditional practices based on rigidity, homogenization and monologism; the second one is expected to be flexible, decentralized and interactive. Just as in the physical classroom, another variant to be considered in the online classroom concerns the cultural profile of the learners determined by age, gender, beliefs or territorial belonging, for example.

These issues were addressed in the teachers’ interviews, as it can be seen in T2´s testimony:

We must know that they are students from different regions of the country.³ Then, there is heterogeneity in every sense: culture, knowledge... There are some who have more knowledge than others. I have students who have lived in Spain; who have lived in Hispanic countries, who have a fluency in the language; and have others who can not speak Spanish. So it has to be a differentiated treatment because the students have a different degree of learning, different degrees of knowledge, culture, everything... We have to take care of the cultural issue in the way the pupil sees teaching-learning. Often, the learner is used the to face-to-face education; he does not know what DE is like.

The ways of relating to teaching and learning differ according to experiences related to regional context, cultural profile or educational modality. Thus, besides predicting distinct experiences in geographic and socioeconomic terms, the online tutor should consider that students can reach the digital education with different understandings of how it differs from the presential education. Another experience related to the cultural identities of students of DE courses was thus reported by T1:

When I had the opportunity to travel and teach at the different poles, I had the question of the student’s cultural identity with a little more precision. I could understand it in a more precise way. If I was in Juiz de Fora, I had a look that was different from when I was in Sergipe.[...] So, in the online classroom, I have an impression, but I do not have this data concretized as I had seeing and experiencing the reality of the students. Now, I see, I read, I understand the reading and writing of that student, the way he expresses... (T1)

In that DE program, there was a moment when the faculty went to the poles to accompany the students in face-to-face activities; which is no longer the case, especially after the inclusion of the VLE in their educational practices. According to the previous testimony, being with the students in their cultural reality represented the possibility of knowing them in their way of being, relating, living, expressing themselves. However, even if it is not foreseen to be physically present at the face-to-face poles with the students, it is necessary for the online tutor to find other ways to approach their cultural realities.

Thus, T1 has retaken the question of linguistic competence which, besides competing for the establishment of interpersonal ties and for the knowledge construction, can be a reference for the perception of the cultural identity of the students. Supporting the reading and writing practices for that purpose finds correspondence in ^{Koch (2010}), which points to human language as a way of revealing the constitution of identities and the representation of social roles.

The dimension of who their students are and what their needs are may relate to other competence required to conduct online teaching. In the fluidity of the digital classroom, it is necessary that the online tutor develops means of organizing and managing both the teaching and the administrative activities so that the tutorial work is conducted with due correction, punctuality and organization. In this regard, the participants of this study discussed their routines and workflows in the online classroom.

Tutorial competence

In the DE program under study, the tutorial competence of these teachers was manifested by the need to establish priorities and routines in the performance of their work. It was highlighted the attention that the interviewees give to the return of doubts or difficulties presented by the students in the study of the disciplines. In addition, it is part of the tutorial work the dispatch of messages with alerts about activity deadlines or the maintenance of a welcoming environment. Another action that proved to be important was the correction of the evaluation activities, whose results should be made available by the online tutor, according to the institutional term. Thus, the administration of the tutorial workflow has proved to be a measure to avoid the accumulation of activities that can delay the responses expected by the students.

Feedback elaboration has shown to be a significant and important part of the actions performed in the daily work of these online tutors. In the process of evaluating the activities of the students posted in the online classroom, the statement of T2 brought to the discussion aspects related to correction procedures and the time available for feedback and the result obtained by the undergradute student:

I take my time to correct the activities because I like to correct them. I like to use that yellow marker. Generally, I use the yellow marker when the word is wrong; and I also cross the wrong word out… Maybe, you will criticize me, but I do it. I put aside what is right, because sometimes there is no time to rewrite it. I try to show the mistakes that the student made, but also, trying to show that what he wrote is considered. What he built, I will consider. The point is: the level of knowledge; what the student is able to do... We need to have this; take this into account. I can´t want a pattern of response.[...] You need to consider what the student did, how he did it and score what you think is convenient, what is relevant, what you think you should score. But the student needs to feel that at least what he has built is important. (T2)

Another issue is the reference that the DE student has. That student thinks that you are there to serve him, that there are no other colleagues ... “I posted the question and, up to the moment, the teacher has not corrected it? How come?” He complains immediately. But I can´t tell him either ... “It is not just you!” I can´t say that. So, I have to find a solution... “Your question will be corrected by that date. Please, wait. Do not worry.” You have this dimension; the student does not. This is a big difference because, in the classroom, you can look at the student and say ... “I am assessing tests of five groups. Wait for the result of your test.” It is much easier to persuade the student. In distance education, you do not have that possibility. (T2)

When affirming “I like to correct the students´ activities,” it is possible to admit that T2 recognizes the need to indicate to the undergraduate what has been achieved and what should be reviewed in the presented answer. Despite the criticism apprehension, that online tutor demonstrated using the tools of text editors as teaching resources for intervention and guidance in student writing. In addition to the technological competence that allows to incorporate graphic resources of the VLE, such as colored highlights or griffins on words, aiding in the understanding regarding performance in a written activity; it is also necessary to pay attention to the didactic-pedagogical competence when defining what each of them indicates - correction already made by the online tutor or reformulation to be made by the student, for example.

As for the factor ‘time’, Abreu-e-Lima and Alves (2011) attest its importance in the elaboration and availability of the feedback for distance learning activities. Although the authors consider it crucial for the student to feel “heard”, they admit the difficulty in delimiting ideal time frames for the return of such evaluation. In the online classroom time, one of the obstacles faced by T2 is to deal with the undergraduates´ anxiety regarding the disclosure of academic performance. In addition, investigations conducted by Abreu-e-Lima and Alves (2011) indicated that from 60% to 70% of the work time of the online tutor is spent with feedback elaboration.

In the DE tutorial work, the evaluation of the academic activities done by the students is a pedagogical action that requires attention and care. Besides learning implications, it can influence the interpersonal relationship among the students´ group, as addressed by T1:

… I try to read the student´s text to have the vision of the whole. Then I return to that production. When I come back, if the text is good, I say that the text is coherent, very well-elaborated, very well organized; so I congratulate the student and highlight the positive points I perceived; the clear language... I already have my own “script” to avoid forgetting. Sometimes the feedback I give to a student is not the same as that one I give to another; this avoids the comparison between them... They can live in the same city or sometimes have a study group at the pole... (T1)

In order to be able to objectively position before questions related to the evaluation of the performance of the students, T1 revealed having a support instrument, of own creation, that assists in the elaboration of feedback to be sent to the undergraduates. What the interviewee called “script” can be understood as the set of criteria definition to be examined in the activity under evaluation. For ^{Baldovinotti and Carlini (2010}), another benefit of establishing parameters for correction is that they facilitate the review of the actions undertaken by the student when accomplishing the task, giving a more definite dimension of the ownership of his work.

Although they recognize the relevance of organizing a routine for online tutoring, it was reported that the workload might be insufficient to reach what the online tutor sets as a goal, being the continuity of work at home the alternative for the realization of what was intended. Another occurrence that may justify online tutoring outside the educational institution is the fact that, due to the workload contracted, some tutors fulfill the teaching hours in only a few days, and that distance can also lead to accumulation or waiting in the demands to be answered.

The habit or need to extend work beyond institutionalized time could be assessed, since, taking the tutoring context at the Open University of Brasil (UAB), Abreu-e-Lima and Alves (2011) argue that productivity increases when the tutor accesses the VLE daily, even for a short time. In research with teachers working in face-to-face teaching and distance teaching from an educational institution, ^{Mill (2012}) found that only 5.33% of them said they did not do online teacher work at home and 20% of those who worked in online teaching at home said doing it not to accumulate work. On these issues, the tutors declared:

Before the written questions, the undergraduate theses and the projects, which are many, I think it is a little easier to keep up with. But written questions, projects, theses and several doubts, I need to act more, I feel like it seems that I have to work the weekend to get it. (T1)

I see that distance education also makes you take things home. So, I access the computer at my house pretty much every day to keep an eye out for work. What I seek is not to accumulate; so every day I have a number of tasks that I propose myself to do. (T3)

With the support of the teaching institution, the tutor should develop tutorial competence so that the routine in online teaching allows attending the pedagogical and administrative issues, but also that the teacher can study the didactic materials to be mediated in the teaching and learning process in the VLE. The previous action will be fundamental for the development of the didactic-pedagogical competence in online teaching.

Didactic-pedagogical competence

The planning for activities related to online tutoring should foresee the knowledge and study of didactic materials to be mediated in a discipline. In the program under study, the presentation of the contents is based on required readings, commonly elaborated by the institution faculty; complementary readings, indicated by the responsible-teacher, usually electronic texts available in the VLE library or on the web; video lessons, usually produced by institution teams - teachers, audiovisual professionals, proofreaders etc. In addition to these, it is possible that the teacher responsible for the discipline indicates or elaborates complementary sources, such as films, songs, study schemes, abstracts, etc. In that regard, the teacher-tutors expressed themselves in the following way:

It is possible to have access to the teaching materials of a discipline, but not too early, because there is a period for the tutoring links to be released. When it happens, I go in the disciplines and start, at least, a general reading to have a notion... (T1)

As the reading materials are online, we have a virtual library and the books to support the students are there or I also have access to the physical book, which, if it is available, I can take home; if not, you have the library in the coordinator’s room. So, yes, we do have access to the materials. (T3)

About the possibility to access the teaching materials in advance... No. I am informed that I will be a tutor when the system is opened for me and the student. Usually, I access with the student. Unless you have worked with discipline before. (T4)

You ask a very good question, because this contact with the materials is fundamental - it´s necessary to know the material to give a good orientation, a good direction of the doubts. So I always try to talk to my colleagues, in the discussions, how important it is that this role of the teacher preparing the material is the online tutor, right? Because sometimes you take the tutoring of a material that you have not prepared; there is always this mismatch between the mastery of the material because you have to... look at the material to remove the doubt. While if you’re going to prepare the week, you lean over the material. (T5)

These tutors have shown that they are aware of the importance of interacting in advance with the teaching materials with which they will work. However, they also highlighted weaknesses in the organization of the DE system of their institution because it is not possible to study the material in advance, since they can be informed that they will orientate a specific discipline when it is already being made available to the students. In addition, there was no mention of the teacher-author’s role in the online tutor training in order to mediate the study of the elaborated material.

Additionally, the predominance of written texts as the main source of information was evidenced, since there was no mention of access to other materials, such as audiovisual texts. ^{Mill (2009}) emphasizes that DE courses can be based on print and/ or digital media, but the audiovisual text is still used as support for the written text, as well as in conventional on-campus educational practices. Thus, the linguistic competence of the tutor is restricted to the written language, when it could explore other languages supported by the VLE, such as the audiovisual text and hypermedia, aiming at pedagogical mediation.

The assessment of the student learning is another action related to the pedagogical mediation conducted by the online tutor, because it deals with the appropriation of the topics studied by the students. Thus, T3 stated how important is to intervene in the application of the content and in the use of the language. However, the interviewee revealed a marked difference in doing didactic-pedagogical mediation of content in the online classroom:

As you do not have a whiteboard, or black or green, to say ... “This construction is inadequate, because, in the standard language, there are some norms you will need when entering the labor market.” So, you have to write. I always try to make this game of working with the content, clarifying the question or returning to the student´s answer, but also alerting him to the matter of lexical choices, cohesion and coherence... “You repeated that word three times. You can replace the word “student” by the pronoun “he” or by the word “pupil”, writing a lighter text, easier to be read and more cohesive.” (T3)

The previous testimony revealed the search of that online tutor for new ways and means to mediate learning, because, now, it is not possible to rely on the support of chalk and blackboard to demonstrate to the student what to do or how to improve. T3´s strategy is to get the undergraduate to understand the question asked and then offer the evaluation of the answer presented. By saying “you have to write,” the tutor mentioned the competence of feedback elaboration.

In exemplifying how it would be the establishment of the dialogue with the student in the act of evaluation, that Portuguese language teacher revealed possible roles that pedagogical mediation can assume in online teaching. Instead of pointing out mistakes and right answers, T3 proposes to act as a reflexive guide, highlighting parts of the response to provoke reflection (the repetition of words); facilitator, by provoking the mobilization of studied concepts (pronoun / synonym / cohesion); and mediator, by demonstrating better alternatives for the student´s writing (^{ABREU-E-LIMA; ALVES, 2011}).

Pedagogical mediation in distance university education requires specific teaching knowledge in terms of language, didactics, content or organization, for example; but it also depends on an elementary domain: the knowledge of the online platform where the teaching and learning process happens. The VLE, electronic classroom, demands an educator able to navigate through its tools, resources, tabs, icons, tutorials. The technological competence of the online tutor is, therefore, fundamental so that new technologies are used aiming at the educational act.

Technological competence

In a DE program, the digital technologies chosen to mediate its didactic-pedagogical proposal must be mastered from the technical perspective so that they are integrated into the teaching and learning process characteristic of the online education. Thus, among the experiences with the electronic classroom of the DE program under study, the tutors interviewed highlighted the following:

I find it easy to navigate the online classroom, because I have been following it from the beginning for many years.[...] As I am curious, I access and want to test. If I do not understand, I ask some teacher: “I did not understand, did you understand what it is necessary to do?”[...] the tools make it much easier. At first, because we do not know them, we make some mistakes. From the moment you perceive them, they help a lot, they collaborate with us. (T1)

In the beginning, it was not easy. Until you identify these tools and know how to use them, it is not easy. With the day to day, we are learning and we have these tools ... I evaluate them, at the moment, as good ones; I like them. (T2)

I had already had the experience at the FI, at the Federal Institute, when I arrived. Here, it is a classroom, the VLE. I think it is very well done because I did not find it difficult to navigate. I do not know if it is because I counted on the help of the whole team. You do not have many obstacles; even because we are close to the people who create it. So, you have this technical support. Whenever I need, I am near the room where they know all the modifications of the VLE. (T3)

I think the VLE is good, yeah… In terms of navigation, you´re talking about, right? Not content, right? I think it’s good. I think the current navigation is very clear; the disciplines within each classroom, it is well specified that distribution, the activities; I think that, in that sense, it got much better as time passed by. That part of the navigation, the design, that part has evolved. Because there is a counter-trend that we have to follow, but we can´t deal with it… That´s the hurry, right? The more you become didactic and self-intelligible, people are so accelerated and don´t have a minute to look right there. (T5)

Previous reports have shown the adaptation of each tutor to the online classroom. There were those who followed the institutional VLE since its construction, passing by those who experienced online teaching in the electronic classroom of another DE program, until who is starting in this mode of teaching. Between unfamiliarity and learning, the interviewees positively evaluated the VLE with which they work. It was also highlighted the need for autonomy to explore the possibilities of the new classroom and, in that action, the support of the online tutoring colleagues and the IT staff proved to be valid, which, according to ^{Mill (2012}), illustrates DE mediated by new technologies as a mode of collective teaching.

The competences for teaching in the digital classroom discussed from the experiences of the teachers participating in this study point to the need for diverse skills that allow them to deal with pedagogical mediation in the VLE for the students’ learning. For that reason, the online tutor should develop competence so that the undergraduate pupil studying via web can learn.

Learning competence

As in other formal education experiences, the online tutor is primarily responsible for leading the student to learning. But, in DE, being pedagogical mediation conducted with teachers and students in different times and spaces, that raises a worrying issue for undergraduate courses in that mode of education: high levels of evasion, since solitude can accompany students throughout their studies (^{SILVA, BRITO, 2013}).

In order to deal with such an obstacle in pedagogical mediation, besides social knowledge for the reception and the affectivity, it must be associated knowledge that allow the online tutor to intervene in the difficulties that interfere with the students’ learning. In that sense, T3 signaled how social and learning competence can be demanded in the online classroom orientation: “You will realize who is in need of more resources, more support. Intellectual and emotional support. “

By accompanying the interactions and the manifestations of the students in the VLE, that interviewee showed how the online tutor´s sensitivity could direct to a teaching intervention that allows the undergraduate to overcome fragilities that hinder academic and personal formation. T4, in turn, reported how to pose before learners with difficulty to organize their time to devote themselves to distance learning:

I try to put myself in his place no matter how much he says ... “I have full-time job. I do not have time to study.” I do not think... “Wow! It is an absurd that the student wants to take a distance learning course if he does not have time to study.” I do not think like that. I think... “That student needs to be better informed. How can I talk to him without offending him?” I really do not know his reality. (T4)

The position of that online tutor is related to ^{Tardif (2000}), because, according to the author, before the incomprehension about dedication required to learn at a distance, T4 seeks to understand the personal characteristics of the students for their integration into the process of teaching and learning in online education.

It is a challenge for these teachers to develop their competence to identify and intervene, even at a distance, in the difficulties of the students that refer to reconciling personal and professional life to academic life, which may compromise the learning process in DE. In that sense, the pedagogical mediation of the tutor should enable students to develop their language, socio-cultural interaction, university study and technological mastery in accordance with characteristics desired by online education - flexibility, discipline, initiative, dialogue, collaboration.