Stephen Preskill – författare

Build teams, make better decisions, energize groups, and think out of the box Do you need a resource that you can pull out of your pocket to liven up meetings, trainings, professional development, and teaching? The fifty easily applied techniques in this timely manual spur creativity, stimulate energy, keep groups focused, and increase participation. Whether you're teaching classes, facilitating employee training, leading organizational or community meetings, furthering staff and professional development, guiding town halls, or working with congregations, The Discussion Book is your go-to guide for improving any group process. Each of the concrete techniques and exercises is clearly described with guidance on selection and implementation, as well as advice on which pitfalls to avoid. All of the techniques: Offer new ways to engage people and energize groupsGet employees, students, colleagues, constituents, and community members to participate more fully in deliberative decision-makingEncourage creativity and openness to new perspectivesIncrease collaboration and build cohesive teamsKeep groups focused on important topics and hard-to-address issuesDerived from the authors' decades of experience using these exercises with schools, colleges, corporations, the military, social movements, health care organizations, prisons, unions, non-profits, and elsewhere, The Discussion Book will help you guide discussions that matter.

How Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School catalyzed social justice and democratic educationFor too long, the story of life-changing teacher and activist Myles Horton has escaped the public spotlight. An inspiring and humble leader whose work influenced the civil rights movement, Horton helped thousands of marginalized people gain greater control over their lives. Born and raised in early twentieth-century Tennessee, Horton was appalled by the disrespect and discrimination that was heaped on poor people—both black and white—throughout Appalachia. He resolved to create a place that would be available to all, where regular people could talk, learn from one another, and get to the heart of issues of class and race, and right and wrong. And so in 1932, Horton cofounded the Highlander Folk School, smack in the middle of Tennessee.The first biography of Myles Horton in twenty-five years, Education in Black and White focuses on the educational theories and strategies he first developed at Highlander to serve the interests of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. His personal vision keenly influenced everyone from Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Eleanor Roosevelt and Congressman John Lewis. Stephen Preskill chronicles how Horton gained influence as an advocate for organized labor, an activist for civil rights, a supporter of Appalachian self-empowerment, an architect of an international popular-education network, and a champion for direct democracy, showing how the example Horton set remains education’s best hope for today.

This book offers a systematic look at the connections between learning and leading and the use of learning to inspire and organize for change. It explores two interrelated dimensions of learning leadership: the ways leaders themselves learn about leadership practice, and the way leaders foster the learning of those they work with. The book focuses on a number of important leadership activities and adopts a case study approach to illuminate how leaders themselves learn, how they impart knowledge to others, and how they support others in becoming more effective and enduring learners.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the landmark book Discussion as a Way of Teaching shows how to plan, conduct, and assess classroom discussions. Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill suggest exercises for starting discussions, strategies for maintaining their momentum, and ways to elicit diverse views and voices. The book also includes new exercises and material on the intersections between discussion and the encouragement of democracy in the classroom. This revised edition expands on the original and contains information on adapting discussion methods in online teaching, on using discussion to enhance democratic participation, and on the theoretical foundations for the discussion exercises described in the book.    Throughout the book, Brookfield and Preskill clearly show how discussion can enliven classrooms, and they outline practical methods for ensuring that students will come to class prepared to discuss a topic. They also explain how to balance the voices of students and teachers, while still preserving the moral, political, and pedagogic integrity of discussion.

A history of the accomplishments of the University of New Mexico’s Family Development Program that is sure to influence early childhood advocacy networks everywhere. Since 1985, a grassroots initiative called the Family Development Program (FDP) at the University of New Mexico has championed early childhood education as a long-term way to address poverty, strengthen democracy, and protect the rights of young children. Putting Our Youngest Children First chronicles FDP’s accomplishments, all from the ground up, community by community. With important lessons about collaborative problem-solving and citizen leadership to effect systemic change, Vermilya and Preskill offer proven strategies for mobilizing family and community advocacy to ensure that the education of young children remains one of the nation’s top priorities.

A history of the accomplishments of the University of New Mexico's Family Development Program that is sure to influence early childhood advocacy networks everywhere.Since 1985, a grassroots initiative called the Family Development Program (FDP) at the University of New Mexico has championed early childhood education as a long-term way to address poverty, strengthen democracy, and protect the rights of young children. Putting Our Youngest Children First chronicles FDP's accomplishments, all from the ground up, community by community. With important lessons about collaborative problem-solving and citizen leadership to effect systemic change, Vermilya and Preskill offer proven strategies for mobilizing family and community advocacy to ensure that the education of young children remains one of the nation's top priorities.

Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the landmark book Discussion as a Way of Teaching shows how to plan, conduct, and assess classroom discussions. Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill suggest exercises for starting discussions, strategies for maintaining their momentum, and ways to elicit diverse views and voices. The book also includes new exercises and material on the intersections between discussion and the encouragement of democracy in the classroom. This revised edition expands on the original and contains information on adapting discussion methods in online teaching, on using discussion to enhance democratic participation, and on the theoretical foundations for the discussion exercises described in the book.   

Throughout the book, Brookfield and Preskill clearly show how discussion can enliven classrooms, and they outline practical methods for ensuring that students will come to class prepared to discuss a topic. They also explain how to balance the voices of students and teachers, while still preserving the moral, political, and pedagogic integrity of discussion.

Build teams, make better decisions, energize groups, and think out of the box

Do you need a resource that you can pull out of your pocket to liven up meetings, trainings, professional development, and teaching? The fifty easily applied techniques in this timely manual spur creativity, stimulate energy, keep groups focused, and increase participation. Whether you''re teaching classes, facilitating employee training, leading organizational or community meetings, furthering staff and professional development, guiding town halls, or working with congregations, The Discussion Book is your go-to guide for improving any group process.

Each of the concrete techniques and exercises is clearly described with guidance on selection and implementation, as well as advice on which pitfalls to avoid. All of the techniques:

Offer new ways to engage people and energize groups Get employees, students, colleagues, constituents, and community members to participate more fully in deliberative decision-making Encourage creativity and openness to new perspectives Increase collaboration and build cohesive teams Keep groups focused on important topics and hard-to-address issues

Derived from the authors'' decades of experience using these exercises with schools, colleges, corporations, the military, social movements, health care organizations, prisons, unions, non-profits, and elsewhere, The Discussion Book will help you guide discussions that matter.