Abstract

Autonomous learning has been defined from various perspectives such as constructivism, self-determined theory. Review of the literature clarifies that there is not a holistic view of the strategies fostering autonomous learning. Autonomy constitutes the core of learning; therefore, it deserves to be explored more precisely. Some educators are aware of the importance of autonomy in learning, while they do not know how autonomy can be fostered among learners. Autonomous learning provides the opportunity to transform learning from teacher-centered towards student-oriented learning. Although self-assessment, self-regulation, self-access learning ,technology, and implementing e-portfolios are different components and strategies to foster autonomy, these strategies cannot facilitate autonomous learning automatically. Educators are required to transform their traditional role as controllers of learning to facilitators of learning in order to support autonomous learning. Being aware of these strategies contributes learners and educators in this journey. The central foci of this paper include knowing the characteristics of autonomous learners, and in particular reviewing the various components of autonomous learning. Existing literature has been discussing the term autonomy descriptively, rather than focusing on the dominant strategies that foster autonomy. This paper, however, reports a list of the strategies which have considerable potential for enhancing development of autonomy learning.