Several years ago, I attended a series of training sessions conducted by the authors on using protocols in professional development situations and experienced the "power of protocols" first-hand. Since then, I have used them or variations in several ways that have lead to powerful insights for all involved. Most recently, in a graduate education course in technology use, my students (prospective or practicing teachers earning a Master's degree) used a modified version of the Tuning Protocol to give and receive feedback on their final projects. All the students commented on the contrast to typical final presentation sessions, and how this experience made them better listeners as presenters and audience members. We also used the Provocative Prompts protocol as a final class activity.

I've used these protocols in working with teachers and administrators in schools. These protocols give people structured opportunties to talk, and to listen -- especially useful in situations of inherently unequal power, such as in meetings with a principal or district-level administator and teachers.

This is an excellent addition to your library if you are a facilitator of any kind (principal, teacher educator, lead teacher, etc.) and is a good companion book to David Allen, Tina Blythe, and Barbara Schieffelin Powell's book "Looking Together At Student Work."

I suppose this sort of thinking has some place in American education. I had a hard time seeing exactly how this would lead to "better practice," however, or why a teacher in-service educator would pick a particular protocol over another, because most of the protocols seemed roughly similar.