AN EXPERIENCE OF AUTONOMOUS LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA

This experience comes from two different concepts: e-learning and personal learning. It has been developed with students of the degree of Chemistry (awarded by ECTN with the Chemistry Eurobachelor (R) quality label since October 2010) at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Burgos. To introduce e-learning in Higher Education has the ostensible purpose of improving the quality of the learning experience for students. E-learning is defined, for our purpose here, as the application of information and communications technologies, in particular computers and internet, for teaching and learning. It is important because e-learning can make a significant difference in how learners learn, how quickly they adquire a skill and how easy it is to study. One of the desirable goals, in Higher Education, for e-learning is "to de-institutionalise learning/to enable self-managed learning" [1]. This coincides with one of the most demanded skills in the process of construction of the European Higher Education Area. For example, according to the "Budapest Descriptor" [2] the students in Chemistry will "have developed those learning skills that will allow them to continue to study in a manner that may be largely self-directed or autonomous, and to take responsibility for their own professional development". However, as Preskett says in ref. [1] "self-managed or personal learning, in the framework of the e-learning, is a phrase that is creeping into higher education but it's often offered within a tightly controlled space which kind of misses the point. I don't find myself using this much unless it's clearly what the want to hear". E-learning and personal learning are at the core foundation of the European Higher Education Area and should be practiced actively by students, so teachers should offer an open space of learning. This is the goal of the learning activity described below.