The Discussion Book: Fifty Great Ways to Get People Talking

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.

STEPHEN D. BROOKFIELD is the John Ireland Endowed Chair at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books including The Skillful Teacher, Teaching for Critical Thinking, and Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, from Jossey-Bass.

STEPHEN PRESKILL is professor emeritus at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. He is the author, with Stephen Brookfield, of Discussion as a Way of Teaching and Learning as a Way of Leading, both from Jossey-Bass.