This book of protocols is an essential tool for facilitators of groups working together to examine student and teacher work. A follow-up to Looking Together at Student Work and Assessing Student Learning, this resource considers the purposes for engaging in collaborative review and provides some of the most effective strategies for successful collaboration.
This will be a handy book for me to hold onto, but I wouldn't buy it as my intro to Critical Friends or NSFR protocols. The protocols are powerful tools for facilitation, but I would just choose another entry point--like the website...
As a facilitator of adults, I want to improve my facilitating and know how to "move" comfortably from one portion of a protocol to another and ask probing questions off the cuff that keep the conversation moving forward. Gene Thompson-Grove is the protocol guru in Brookline. I am studying her techniques and am awed by the ease in which she keeps any group moving forward to delve deeply into one's practice. This book did not help me as I hoped it would. I think that "observing" more groups will eventually help me ask the pertinent questions...