Constitución de la República del Ecuador

The teacher-educators saw the preliminary stage of thinking and planning as an important component that was fundamental to the entire teaching process. They formulated their goals in advance and defined the final objective which they wanted the students to reach. They invested much time in preparatory work mainly during the summer vacation before the academic year began. However this investment did not relieve their intensive activity during the course. During the semester they were busy with the work of supervision, organisation and management of the learning. They acted immediately to find and correct any deviations that were revealed.

I lead the whole business, which I direct in its entirety, and I know what I want to achieve in every area (Tad).

Their approach provided personal supervision for each learner while sharing the process with peers, so the course teacher determined a uniform but flexible order of teaching and learning for the entire group. The maintenance of a permanent order meant that all the learners were at the same stage in the sequence of tasks and ability to advance, however using their personal diary they were able to learn and receive personal, flexible guidance. This teaching mode provided support to encourage peer learning. In order to focus they needed to read, to learn and sometimes to receive materials both from the

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teacher-educator and from other students, such as authentic materials brought from the field, or writing that they had composed concerning the materials received from the teacher.

There is a strict order and structure for the teaching and learning processes. They did not skip any stage. The students practised innumerable times until they achieved a fluently written final product. The teacher-educators guided them, and determined the pace and the contents. In this way they aspired to bring the student to a higher level of qualification, continually checking whether the student really learnt. Consequently, heavy responsibility was imposed on the teacher-educator.

In principle, when planning the learning programme you have to plan it beforehand …its just important not to build it linearly but rather with

many options … you have to be alert all the time, whether the student is

really learning … I have a sort of very tight network in my head, with all sorts of small buttons … I think that if I could duplicate that network, like that with the buttons so they still retained their meaning, I could be a good distance teacher (Avon).

The definition of the work method and the timetable for the students was determined beforehand. There was an obvious concern for the students' working and learning practices. They perceived this as part of the organisation of the learning environment, the acquisition of learning skills and the development of an independent learner. This meant that the responsibility for the learning and compliance with the timetable was part of the learner's duties and commitment. Therefore the teacher-educators carefully drafted and clarified the requirements and made sure that the tasks were performed on time.

There must be very clear requirements, how often they entered the forum, when they entered the forum, on which day they entered the forum, the group and sub-groups in the course and you have to be very, very, very

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Their approach necessitated an obvious investment of time and thought, giving attention to the form of the digital learning space. They thought that the design and manner in which the learning materials were presented and the ease of navigation in the site facilitated comprehension of the learning materials.

It's very, very important to me how the site looks. It’s the site's work tool (Tad).

To summarise: the teacher-educators that used this mode devoted much time and thought to planning and organisation of the learning materials and adhered to their maintenance. At the same time they provided supervision and support for the students and staged their progress in a deep and intensive manner according to a timetable without any shortcuts. This teaching mode led to an open and flexible organisation of teaching that allowed the learner a large, open learning space.

Repetitive Presentation of Uniform Tasks

As noted the teacher-educators used texts and tasks, which they chose and uploaded onto the site even before the beginning of the academic year, so there was not very much leeway to make alterations in these materials during the course. The fact that the teacher-educators thought that peer learning was important also dictated the order of tasks and the distribution of dates for their performance over the semester. This work mode provided personal consideration and individual supervision for each student and was also of course expressed in the way that tasks were examined by the teacher- educators. The tasks were read and examined, the student received corrective feedback and this was repeated again and again. In-depth acquaintance with each learner enabled the teacher to assess whether the student had written the materials by himself or was helped by someone else and breached the rules of ethics.

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Formative and Summative Assessment

Teacher-educators who used this mode saw the use of formative assessment as a central tool and felt that it provided support for each student to progress. They therefore enlisted the technological tools of e-mail and the forum in order to conduct formative assessment several times for each written document written by the student.