Research Question and Objetives
The central question of the research is: ¿What is the contribution of the Training on the Professional Identity and Educational Innovation Competences of the Master’s students in Distance Education on their personal and professional improvement?
The objectives of the research are specified in the following:
-To train students in the mastery of Professional Identity and Educational Innovation Competences, in line with the Master's profile in Strategies and Technologies for the Teaching Function in the Multicultural Society.
-Develop a didactic process based on the accomplishment of tasks suggested by the teaching team and self-proposed by the students to promote reflection on the mentioned competences with the support of the distance education platform.
-Set up a training and research framework to foster competences upgrades.
Theoretical Framework
The competences of professional identity and educational innovation are key axes of the professionalization of young teachers and researchers to influence in the integral improvement of knowledge and educational practices. The professional identity competency can be defined as the image that the teacher has of himself on a personal, academic and institutional level (Medina, Domínguez & Sánchez, 2013). Also, educational innovation is the creation of an integral culture of improvement of the job, the educational practice and the institution (Medina-R, Cacheiro & Medina-M, 2015). This path of innovation is conceptualized by Jiménez, González & Fandos (2015) as deliberation, change and optimization.
One of the elements that favors the development of these competences, following Bennett et al. (1997) and Le Boterf (2008, 2010) is the reflection, as a dimension of professionalism. Lamote and Engels (2010) emphasize as characteristics of the development of the professional identity of future teachers: commitment to teaching, task orientation and self-efficacy.
Mohamed et al (2016) include these two competencies among the eleven selected in the international arena, namely: professional growth and willingness to try out new ideas and strategies.
The training of postgraduate students is focused on mastery of the nuclear competencies that we present in this intense, complementary and inquiring scenario of research and teaching innovation.
Domínguez, Levi, Medina & Ramos (2012) and Medina (2013) highlight the impact and need of university faculty to master, as specialists, the competencies that have to work with students to achieve a high level. The competences of professional identity and educational innovation are the most outstanding ways of sharing a style of teaching, which stimulates an innovative and relevant learning for each student.
The research is included in a process of innovation and creative development of teaching practices, which assume the leadership and complicity of students, achieving high levels of motivation, when designing a typology of tasks, which connect with their expectations and interests. This is intended to create a scenario of personal and shared learning in which students propose self-tasks facilitating a continuous domain of identity and innovation competences, in complementarity with those of communication and methodological.
The study aims to contribute to the students of master in education reach a high level in the competences of Professional Identity and Educational Innovation, through the process of didactic transformation, generated from the subject with support of the platform aLF-UNED resources, which give new meaning both to the training of students and to the professional development of teachers, who share this line of teaching innovation.

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