Corwin Effective Group Facilitation in Education: How to Energize Meetings and Manage Difficult Groups

Designed for administrators who frequently are assigned to facilitate stakeholder groups - parents, site-based management teams, faculty and staff, accountability teams, and others - this book helps facilitators keep meetings positive, productive, and efficient by managing trouble areas, dissent, deviation from the task, and by energizing the group. Besides addressing the intuitive aspect of the facilitation process, John Eller includes many strategies and templates that help groups of people work together to complete tasks, generate new ideas, and solve problems. Effective Group Facilitation in Education serves as a practical guide that fills the gap that exists between traditional meeting facilitation and "best practice" in working with others. About the Author John Eller has had a variety of experiences in working with adults over the years he has been in education. His experiences include work educational leaders at Virginia Tech University, developing teacher leaders in a Maters program, serving as the Executive Director of Minnesota ASCD, work as a principal’s training center director, a position as an assistant superintendent for curriculum, learning, and staff development, and several principal positions in a variety of settings. In addition to the work he does in training and supporting facilitators, John also does work in the areas of dealing with difficult people, building professional learning communities, employee evaluation, conferencing skills, coaching skills, strategic planning strategies, school improvement planning and implementation, differentiated instruction, leadership for differentiation, employee recruitment, selection, and induction, supervisory skills, and effective teaching strategies. He has his PhD. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Loyola University-Chicago and his MS in Educational Leadership from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. John has authored books on substitute teaching, wrote The Training Video Series for the Professional School Bus Driver, The principals’ Guide to Custodial Supervision contributes articles for the publication Superintendents Only. He wrote Effective Group Facilitation in Education: How to Energize Meetings and Manage Difficult Groups, and co-authored So Now You’re the Superintendent, the best selling, Energizing Staff Meetings and Creative Strategies to Improve School Culture all through Corwin Press.