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Do you facilitate ongoing learning communities or groups of people in video conferencing formats?

Do you want to do meaningful and impactful work?

Do you want your group to come together as a true community, supporting each other and each other's work?

Do you want to ensure that all participants are engaged, participating, and invested in the work of the group?

If so, Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities: Using Protocols to Improve Educator Practice is for you!

Following in the footsteps of The Book of Questions, Protocols in the Classroom, and Facilitating for Learning, Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities: Using Protocols to Improve Educator Practice explores how to facilitate protocols in a synchronous virtual environment like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet.

In Part 1, the book discusses the work and techniques of facilitating in a video-based, virtual environment. Part 2 of the book contains over 30 protocols that have been written for or modified for synchonous, video-based settings. Specific suggestions for facilitating these protocols are provided.

Facilitating Virtual Learning Communities: Using Protocols to Improve Educator Practice is published by Teachers College Press. It is available through Amazon and Teachers College Press.

1. To provide support and guidance to virtual learning community facilitators in adopting, using, and facilitating protocols for use in synchronous, video-based conferencing environments (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc.).
2. To capture the learning that has taken place for facilitators since the COVID pandemic.
3. To illustrate the nuances in facilitating online that require an extra layer of skill and knowledge beyond what is needed for face-to-face facilitation. 

This book will be helpful for anyone who facilitates a team or group in a virtual environment, be that educators, students, or work groups. Specifically, this book should be of interest to

• Education professionals, including K-12 teachers, administrators, and educational consultants
• Virtual school teachers
• University faculty teaching online
• Virtual team or committee leaders in any setting

Part 1: Facilitating Virtual Communities

Introduction

Chapter 1: Protocols: What Are They and Why Use Them?

Chapter 2: Roles and Work of a Virtual Learning Community Facilitator

Chapter 3: Challenges and Advantages of Virtual Facilitation

Chapter 4: Virtual Facilitation Moves

Part 2: Protocols for Online Use

Chapter 5: Protocols for Opening and Closing Your Meeting

• Connections
• Fears and Hopes
• Postcards from the Edge
• Show and Tell
• I Used to Think ... Now I Think
• Square and Circle Thinking

Chapter 6: Protocols for Developing Community

• Forming Community Agreements or Ground Rules
• Zones of Comfort, Risk, and Danger
• Compass Points
•  Continuum Dialogue
• Meet Me in the Middle

Chapter 7: Protocols for Learning From Texts

• The Final Word
• Four "A's" Text Protocol
• Text Rendering Experience
• Making Meaning Protocol
• Three Levels of Text Protocol

Chapter 8: Protocols for Investigating Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

• Collaborative Assessment Conference
• The Charrette Protocol
• Tuning Protocol
• ATLAS: Looking at Data
• Examining Student Work: A Constructivist Protocol

Chapter 9: Protocols for Probing Professional Dilemmas

• Consultancy Protocol
• Peeling the Onion: Defining a Dilemma Protocol
• The Issaquah Protocol
• What? So What? Now What?

Chapter 10: Protocols for Exploring Identity, Values, and Equity

• Gap Analysis Protocol
• Passion Profiles
• The Paseo or Circles of Identity
• Equity Protocol
• Constructivist Listening Dyad

Chapter 11: Protocols for Encouraging Professional Reflection

• Affinity Mapping
• Chalk Talk
• Microlabs
• Success Analysis

“The authors offer specific, practical guidance on how to adapt protocols and facilitate them in ways that leverage the unique opportunities afforded by virtual spaces and mitigate the challenges. In the process, they help turn the vision of thriving virtual learning communities into vibrant reality.”
―From the Foreword by Tina Blythe, director of learning and outreach, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"This much-needed book is both comprehensive and focused, seamlessly blending four essential topics: facilitation, effective use of protocols, building and sustaining learning communities, and virtual collaboration. While many books address these areas individually, this is the first to weave them together so thoughtfully. The authors' masterful integration offers practical tips and inspiring reminders of what is possible, leaving readers empowered and ready to act."
―Gene Thompson-Grove, consultant, facilitator, coach, Transformational Learning for Equity

The book is available at Amazon and Teachers College Press.