An important task of the educational process in a higher institution of pedagogical education is the purposeful formation of the readiness of students ‒ future teachers for professional self-education as a comprehensive characteristic of their personality, which includes the needs and motives of self-education, professionally significant qualities, as well as necessary knowledge, skills and abilities. A student’s ability to self-education is developed in the process of learning. Self-education skills require purposefulness, systematicity, consistency, and self-motivation of the subject of education. One of the factors contributing to the development of this ability can be research and creative tasks for independent performance in the content of methodological disciplines.The article reveals various types of independent work aimed at the formation of self-educational competence of higher education students, the ability to learn throughout life. Examples of practical tasks from the course “Theory and teaching methods of civic education” are given, which form cognitive and operational- procedural components of the independent activity of higher education students. In the course of the study, the technical conditions for the performance of the tasks, their procedural characteristics, and examples of the implementation of metacognitive strategies in the formation of the subject-methodical competence of future history teachers are given. It was found that independent work allows students to build their educational and professional trajectory and is an area of mutual responsibility of subjects of the educational process.