Online learners are oftentimes seen as a vague and abstract “variable” with barely no human face in the context of discussing how to optimize online learning. To see and hear online learners in the joint effort of meeting their complex needs which are essential to making them striving and fully functioning, we need to look into the autonomous self-regulation of online learners. In this session, we will share how basic psychological needs satisfaction predicts the autonomous self-regulation in the learner-centered teaching and learning of higher education.