Abstract:

On-line instruction has become significant especially in the higher education –graduate and post-graduate degrees- in which, a lot of Universities exclusively provide on-line degrees. The on-line instruction is also extended in the delivery of short and specialized courses addressed to full-time workers of companies.

However, the use of the on-line and/or blended on-line instruction is very reduced for the undergraduate levels, in particular for vocational education and training (VET) qualifications. This paper presents an innovative experience of a Spanish vocational training centre, Xabec, which provides four blended VET qualifications since September 2014.

This experience is especially interesting because of two reasons. On the first hand, this is the first Spanish experience in blended learning in VET qualifications in the field of Industrial Maintenance. On the other hand, the student profile is, usually, an adult person, low qualified and a full-time worker that needs an official accreditation of his professional competence. Both aspects, together with the long duration of the qualifications -two-years- have a remarkable influence in the pedagogical principles and in the learning environment design.

In the first part of the paper, the theoretical framework based on the andragogy model is accurately explained. Then, in the second section the implementation of the blended qualification is precisely described, focusing in relevant issues as the teaching organisation, the mentoring program, video-conference lessons, activities program, workshop practices at the college and assessment methodology. Finally, we present the main conclusions and the quality indicators. The results have been very satisfactory for the first graduates because more than 90% of learners have obtained their qualification.

Keywords:

Vocational Training, Adult education, lifelong learning, Industrial maintenance, Blended learning.