Abstract:

One of the aims of The European Higher Education Area is to provide universities with a compatible and flexible system which allows students and graduates increasing mobility and professional development; assurance in the transparency and quality levels and evaluation systems in agreement with the requirements of the internationalization of knowledge process.
As a result, in the current academic scenarios, University has been forced to optimize their graduate and postgraduate training programs through a renewed curricular organization. A training proposal which highlights the importance of the frequent use of information technology and communication and the increase of teaching methods that help to develop professional competencies related to the labor market.
Concerning training for School leadership, there is increasing demand for competencies development related to the efficient performance of their roles and functions. It is intended that managers in training process not only know and count on basic understanding, but can apply appropriately their knowledge in real professional situations and scenarios.
This paper’s main purpose is to present a study of the development of professional competencies associated with the leadership function through knowledge obtained in an Online Master in Leadership and Management of Education Centers at the University of Barcelona.
The research is situated in an area involving several fields of study:
(i) the way to organize contents (Chevallard, 1991);
(ii) e-activities (Cabero y Gisbert, 2005; Cabero y Román, 2006);
(iii) reflexive practice processes shared among teachers and students (Perrenoud, 2001);
(iv) the analysis of students satisfaction in training online programs (Noé, 2003, Duart, 2008);
(v) educational evaluation (De Miguel, 2002) and learning objects (Quintana, 2004) in online learning environments and,
(vi) the possibility of breaking with geographical and time limitations of the traditional teaching-learning schemes, (Alvarez, S. 2005).

Throughout the text, the process and results of monitoring a group of students in close communication with teachers through different individual and group interactions and the continued use of Moodle platform is described.
The results of the investigation have revealed how knowledge construction processes occur. It demonstrates how through the offered methodological proposals and the use of certain learning tools, it can help students to develop skills in leadership of educational institutions, regardless of the conceptual contents, which are explicit object of study.

Keywords:

Development of professional competencies, school leadership, e-learning, the European Higher Education Area.