With a potential worldwide shortage of 38-40 million college-credentialed graduates by 2020 (Dobbs et al., 2012), the demand for higher education will continue to increase, requiring innovations that ensure access and completion. Online courses fill this need and develop key competences for lifelong learning such as digital competence, learning to learn, and the related outcomes of critical thinking, creativity, initiative, problem solving, and decision making (European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, 2006). They also address the provision of the European reference framework to offer post-secondary opportunities to youth unable to fulfil their potential due to various “personal, social, cultural, or economic circumstances” (p. 11) and adults who need to maintain currency in their fields. This presentation focuses on an ICT-based innovation in which global learners enrolled in an online English language writing course use a social environment space to access targeted supplemental information, apply instructor feedback, develop metacognitive skills, and collaborate to improve their writing. The theoretical foundation includes transactional distance (Moore, 2013), collaborative control (White, 2003), and self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 2002). The mixed methods study examined the effectiveness of the social space in terms of evidence of increased metacognitive strategies, social and motivational processes, and performance.

Dobbs, R, Madgavkar, A., Barton, D., Labaye, E., Manyika, J., Roxburgh, C., Lund, S., & Madhav, S. (2012, June). The world at work: Jobs, pay, and skills for 3.5 billion people. McKinsey Global Institute. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/10546677/Downloads/MGI-Global_labor_Full_Report_June_2012.pdf Moore, M. G. (2013). The theory of transactional distance. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (3rd ed., pp. 66-85). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. (2006, December). Key competences for lifelong learning: A European reference framework. Retrieved from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do White, C. (2003). Language learning in distance education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 64-70.