Abstract:

This presentation aims at elucidating self-regulated learning (SRL) and the role of metacognitions in facilitating self-regulation. SRL is an emerging philosophy aimed at imparting a culture of sustainability and self-reliance in acquiring and applying relevant strategies, skills, competencies, and motivations in learners of all ages to succeed in the complex and dynamic world of knowledge and technology explosion.  SRL requires learners to be proactive and take full responsibility for their learning rather than being reactive and uncommitted. Today’s school curriculum demands students to work at school and home on diverse and simultaneous learning activities with various degrees of familiarity and complexity, like reading, writing, problem-solving, maths, science, languages, and social sciences. This demands regulation and monitoring of their study behaviours. Learners should:

1. Analyse the learning situation, set meaningful learning goals, and determine which strategies to use;
2. Assess whether the strategies are effective in meeting the learning goal while they evaluate their emerging understanding of the topic and continuously determine whether any particular learning strategy is effective for a given learning goal;
3. If required, need to modify their plans, goals, strategies, and efforts regarding internal conditions (cognitive standards) and contextual conditions (pedagogical methods) while learning;
4. Further, depending on the learning task, they need to reflect on their learning.

These processes involve metacognitive monitoring and control and are called self-regulated learning (SRL). Metacognition plays a pivotal role in SRL. Therefore, a significant aspect of teaching should involve teaching students to think about their thinking processes and regulate and control them so that they can adapt to emerging challenges.