Most students at the IL3-UB pursue the interest of learning to find a new job or to improve their labour conditions. Thus, the professional orientation is the backbone of the learning process at the IL3-UB. Our methodological challenge is to guarantee professional development, meant as acquiring labour experience while being trained. Results are measured by participants in terms of professional development and by their enterprises in terms of business impact.

The research we present aims at stimulating a methodological change in training practices so as to adequate them to work-based learning activities.

The research is based in the idea that introducing professional activities in training processes in IL3-UB courses improves participant’s professional competences.

Therefore, seems important to us breaking the existing barriers between the training situation and the labour context in which our students are about to incorporate when finishing their studies – both if they are about to obtain a new job or to raise in rank in their current organisation. The experience we present wants to delete, as much as possible, the limits between formal learning and learning in the workplace (Engeström et al., 1995). Thus, it’s important to include informal learning elements, paying attention mainly to those who people use in workplace (Enaut, 1985; Dehnbostel i Molzberger, 2004) in formal training processes.

The further objective is to help lifelong learning students to gain labour experience while training. Other specific objectives were planned:

-       Analyze current training practices to detect and promote good practices into other courses.

-       Improve and optimize training practices.

-       Create a model on what professional tasks meant for IL3-UB.

-       Implement it into already existing courses by analyzing to what extent already existing practices followed the model and by reconstructing others.

-       Evaluate the impact these new proposals have in courses evaluation both from the students’ and professors’ point of view.

-       Transferee the model to other courses, situations and practices.

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