A one-stop shop to answer your most pressing questions about what it takes to facilitate.

Workshops, committees, teams, and study groups are a regular part of an educator's professional life, and any educator can find themselves in the facilitator role, with a responsibility to aid the group in achieving its goals. The Effective Facilitator's Handbook is here to help.

Professional development expert Cathy A. Toll has written a guide for busy facilitators, starting with four simple rules for successful facilitation: listen, start with the end in mind, lead with productive tools, and stay organized. The processes, tools, and templates in each chapter are easy to apply and offer advice about how to create a welcoming environment, set the right tone, understand the group's dynamics, improve communication, and more.

This book walks you through the unique purposes, pitfalls, and needs of specific types of groups, whether it's a professional development workshop, a committee focused on one decision or problem, a team that regularly collaborates for student success, or a study group learning about a specific issue. But Toll also considers the bigger picture and connects the patterns behind different types of facilitation skills that will serve you in a variety of situations and settings.

As an effective facilitator, you'll be able to increase the value of group time, foster engagement, and help teachers improve their practice so that they can bring their best to the classroom each day.

Toll, Cathy A.

Cathy A. Toll, PhD, serves as both a university faculty member and a consultant. As a faculty member, she is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, where she serves as Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Leadership, Literacy, and Social Foundations. She teaches graduate courses in educational research, educational coaching, literacy leadership, and literacy instruction and was recently chosen to receive the Edward R. Penson Distinguished Teaching Award. Cathy's scholarship includes models of teacher professional learning, coaching, and practices for whole-staff coaching, coaching-the-coach, and individual coaching. She has published widely on coaching, school leadership, teacher professional learning, and school change.