Nurturing Independent Learners
Helping Students Take Charge of Their Learning
by Donald Meichenbaum and Andrew Biemiller
June 1998
ISBN 1-57129-047-8 • $27.95 SC
In Nurturing Independent Learners, Meichenbaum &
Biemiller illustrate the importance of active, self-directed
learning. To achieve mastery, they explain, students cannot be
passive consumers of knowledge; they must actively construct and
apply what they learn. Building on this idea, the authors outline
a theoretical model of instruction and corresponding pedagogical
guidelines. They provide a framework for helping students not only
to acquire skills and strategies, but also to consolidate them,
consult them, and transfer them to increasingly complex authentic
tasks.
Students in today's classrooms exhibit troubling disparities in
academic skill. Throughout their schooling, while smart students get
smarter, slower students fall further and further behind. By the time
they reach high school, students may differ by as much as six grade
levels in their academic abilities. This situation raises numerous
pressing questions: What distinguishes those who falter in school
from those who thrive? How and when do the radical differences between
them emerge? And how can teachers help slower learners without
penalizing those students who are achieving? Meichenbaum and
Biemiller explore the answers to these questions.
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