Strategic teaching in a virtual context: a study on tutor training in continuing education

Adult students who start a distance-studying program need to develop a strategic learning that allows them to adapt themselves to the demands of distance education and achieve their learning goals successfully. The tutor becomes a fundamental factor when it comes to facilitating these students’ adaptation process to distance studying as well as the development of their strategic learning. In this article it is presented a qualitative study on the training process of a group of tutors in strategic distance teaching and learning; it is also presented the analysis of the changes generated in them regarding conceptual and strategic knowledge, both in an academic (as students in the course) and a professional (as tutors) level. Results point out that those tutors who managed to develop higher levels as strategic learners during the training course, accordingly developed a bigger conceptual knowledge and a better performance as strategic tutors.