Autonomous learning allows individuals to take control of their own development by choosing how to learn and practice independently. Autonomous learners use cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Cognitive strategies directly manipulate information to enhance learning, such as repetition, questioning, note-taking, and inference. Metacognitive strategies involve planning, monitoring, and evaluating the learning process, like directing attention, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation. The main difference is that cognitive strategies improve mental abilities while metacognitive strategies help self-regulate learning.