Self-regulation of learning: the potential technologies impact of the metacognitive approach

Self-regulation researchers theorize that self-regulation does not occur when learners display personal initiative, perseverance, and adaptive skill in pursuing learning. At its core, self-regulation involves self-motivation as well as metacognitive processes. Reflection on the process of learning is believed to be an essential ingredient in the development of expert teachers. By employing reflective thinking skills to evaluate the results of one’s own learning efforts, awareness of effective learning strategies can be increased and ways to use these strategies in other learning situations can be understood. In this paper, we describe how expert teachers use the knowledge they have gained of themselves as learners, of task requirements, and of specific ways to deliberately select, control, and monitor strategies needed to achieve the desired learning goals. Moreover, we consider the relationship between new educational technologies and SRL. We present a model of expert teachers which illustrates how learners’ metacognitive knowledge of cognitive, motivational, and environmental strategies is converted to regulatory control of the learning process through ongoing reflective thinking. We shortly reflect on educational technology and its relation to learning theories and to SRL describing an action to support both the teaching and learning quality.