Objectives

Two main objectives guide this project:

• Design procedures to develop in students professional and key competencies for lifelong learning, technology meditated,
• Evaluate the course design, its implementation along the course process, and their results, with the purpose to introduce improvements.

The course of Program Evaluation is distributed by internet (Pedagogy Grade, Spanish National Distance University, UNED).

Theoretical foundation

Students in higher education usually acquire considerable knowledge and many separate skills, but they rarely learn how to integrate them into performance of complex tasks. Ideally, students should learn professional competences in a powerful learning environment where complex tasks can be performed and practised as integrated units. (Janssen-Noordman et al. 2006, p. 447).

Professional competences are defined as meaningful whole tasks that are performed in professional practice, and require integration of knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Lifelong learning (LLL) is regarded as an important strategy to improve human development, with a growing interest related to employability, as well as an important learning output of the Educational Systems in Europe and the entire world. (Moos and Gray, 2013). LLL’s principal aims consist in equipping people with competencies required to continue their own self-learning beyond the end of their formal studies.

LLL competences play an important role to fulfil the Profession-oriented goal in HE in EU. The QFEHEA (2009) states, as a learning output: Have developed those learning skills that are necessary for them to identify their own training need to continue to undertake further study with a high autonomy degree.

Lifelong learning is characterized by Self-directed learning, positive disposition toward learning and the ability to regulate their own cognitive process -metacognition (Knapper & Cropley, 2000, Martínez-Mediano, & Lord, 2012).

Is competent who possesses the ability to do something efficiently and to meet complex demands in a particular context, through knowledge, cognitive skills, practical skills, as well as social and behaviour components such as attitudes, emotions, values and motivations. (Gonczi, 2003). Competency emphasizes a stronger relation between practical and theoretical knowledge, and the contribution of personal and social qualities to task performance (Brockmann et al. 2008, in Fastre et al. 2014, p. 972).

Designers of educational programmes have the challenge to create a learning environment that helps students to construct well-functioning networks of packages that comprise integrated knowledge, skills and attitudes. Educational designers should strive to preserve the coherence of whole tasks, and students should be asked to perform meaningful whole tasks.

Performance a real practice, on-line guided using formative feedback to enhance learning. The subject of ‘Program Evaluation’ aims to develop students’ professional competences. The topics covered by the program determine a logical structure that leads from the simple to the complex, from the particular to the global, web-based and task-centred learning, that is, Evaluate a real educational program, contextualized or closest as possible to reality. Each topic in the educational program is related to practice, also, theoretical based.

At the beginning of the course is presented a structured guide on the implementation of the practice, as a complex task, in its different sections, showing the relationship of each section with the theoretical contents that supports the script. The forums for each topic is centred in applied and understand every part of the global task, with theoretical and applied support information. (Merrill, 2008, Van Merrienboer & Kisrchner, 2007).

Formative feedback is provided in an individual but public way, also grouping answers when it is recommendable in forums.

All the forums, included the specific for the practice, are oriented collaboratively with examples, theoretical support, and continue, in time, formative feedback. The global task assessment is guided by rubric system evaluation.

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