This paper will review the realm of “ executive functioning” and its many variants. If teachers want to educate autonomous learners, they need to devote time, effort and energy to these realms. Teachers may want to teach a wide variety of these skills as they teach their subject matter. This will help students to plan ahead,organize, structure their learning and studying and attend to the various tasks at hand which are involved in the educational process and learning. This paper will review many of these “executive functions “and discuss their importance in the learning process.