Metacognition is the engine of self-regulated learning. At the object level, learners seek information and choose learning tactics and strategies they forecast will develop knowledge. At the meta level, learners gather and analyze data about learning events to draw conclusions, such as: Is this tactic a good fit to conditions? Was it effective? Was effort required reasonable? Is my ability publicly exposed? As data accumulate, learners shape, re-shape and refine a personal theory about optimal learning. Thus, self-regulating learners are learning scientists. However, without training and tools on which "professional" learning scientists rely, learners' N = me research programs are naïve and scruffy. Merging models of tasks, cognition, metacognition and motivation, I describe software tools, approaches to analyzing data and learning analytics designed to serve three goals: supporting self-regulating learners' metacognition in N = me research, accelerating professional learning scientists' research, and boosting synergy among learners and learning scientists to accelerate progress in learning science.