Enhancing Self-Regulation and Metacognition in Online Learning

Nowadays, online education is in the limelight. During the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 students endured an abrupt transition from everyday learning in classrooms to online education. In the process, the concept that learning only occurs if students are physically present in a classroom has changed drastically. As the spaces and interactions are different, teachers need formal training, flexibility, and willingness to provide efficient online education that adjusts to the new and fluctuating realities. Simultaneously, students need to enhance self-regulation and metacognition and be the leaders of their education process and results. It is pivotal that teachers keep in mind that close relationships with students and families and personalized support are critically important to fostering ties, developing knowledge, and preventing school dropout. Consequently, curricula must respond to students’ singularities, socioeconomic conditions, contexts, resources, and interests. This chapter advocates that teachers should support students to work on the development of self-regulation, metacognition, collaborative technology-mediated tasks, and problem-solving in online environments. These are tools that help students to be autonomous, engage with their learning process, learn, create knowledge, decide accurately, improve their creativity, and increase intrinsic motivation skills