Book+Review-+Book+of+Questions

Avera Acai EDU 713 Summary The book __The Facilitator’s Book of Questions: //Tools for Looking Together at Student and Teacher Work//__ is divided amongst nine chapters. The chapters include explaining protocols, comparing protocols, what do facilitators do, what do facilitators do in a protocol, what kinds of questions are asked during a protocol, what happens before and after a protocol, what are the challenges of facilitating protocols, and how do facilitators get better. The chapters are difficult to understand based on the complex information within each chapter. The overall purpose of the book is to provide information about facilitating a protocol-guided conversation. The authors were able to ask facilitators to consider their own assumptions about their role as a facilitator and about the group of whom they are working with. The goal of the authors is that the readers will consider the consequences of the various moves they make as facilitators. The authors meet this goal by providing the readers with questions to ask themselves while in the role of a facilitator. The book also provides a brief summary of additional resources that are available in relation to facilitators and protocols. The most helpful part of this book are the ten scenarios in which facilitators could possibly find themselves in. The ten scenarios can be found at the back of the book under Appendix B.

Evaluation

The reading was difficult and hard to understand. The reader may get confused on all of the ideas presented regarding protocol. The authors start by introducing “what is a protocol” in chapter 1. However, by the end of the chapter the author provides so many different types of definitions of protocol that as a reader, I was still confused about the message that the author was trying to send by the end of the chapter. The questions that the author provides do seem valuable. However, it would have been better if the author presented the questions that facilitators need to implement during protocol in more of a list like form or some type other type of graphic organizer. The book was published in 2004 and does require that the readers become self-reflective about their role as a facilitator. Both of the authors are researchers who attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The authors provided an insightful view from a researcher’s standpoint regarding protocol.

Conclusion In conclusion I would recommend this book to any post-graduate student who is interested in implementing critical thinking skills. I think it would be sufficient to have one copy of this book in the library for people to borrow as they see fit. Based on the multi-levels of study and explanation regarding protocol I feel that it would be in the best interest if only one copy were available in our library. **Reference ** Allen, David, & Blythe, Tina. (2004 ). //The facilitators book of questions//. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.