Nurturing independent learners: Helping students take charge of their learning / Response

Nurturing independent learners: Helping students take charge of their learning. By Donald Meichenbaum & Andrew Biemiller. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books. 1998. Paperback $27.95. ISBN 1-571290-047-8.

The authors of this book are both well known internationally for their major contributions to the understanding of effective teaching and learning. Both are academics, at different universities in Ontario, Canada. The publishers, Brookline, are one of the smaller US publishing houses, but with a strong special interest in metacognition.

The focus of the book is on active and self-directed learning, antithetical to the stereotype of the student as passive consumer (and regurgitator) of received wisdom. For the authors, learning is constructed, not absorbed (yes, just what Bruner was saying in the early 1960s - but not everybody was listening). Their emphasis is on skills and strategies applied to authentic tasks, rather than on decontextualised knowledge.

Nowhere in the book is it made clear who might be the target audience. In fact, it is written in a simple, lucid and direct style, without academic obscurantism and pretension. Much of the discussion is quite descriptive and concrete. It clearly seeks to link research and practice. Useful summaries of key issues are presented in 'highlight' boxes. One assumes it is principally targeted upon teachers in pre-service and in-service training, as well as those who train, consult with and evaluate teachers. Certainly the content relates to students in primary and high schools quite as much as to students in the tertiary sector.

The first chapter bemoans the state of education, mostly that in the USA (which is interesting given that the authors are based in Canada). A discussion of 'expert' performance, declarative/ procedural/strategic knowledge, and other constituents of any discussion about metacognition follows. The connection between 'self-directed' and 'self-regulated' learning is acknowledged (see Schunk & Zimmerman's forthcoming edited volume on the latter for...