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Jacob Kounin

 
Kounin_Model.pdf
Prezi
Jacob Kounin is known as a classroom management theorist. Around 1946, he began
working as an educational psychologist at Wayne State University. Many people believe
that Kounin was highly influenced by Glasser, and it can be seen throughout his work. He
made people think about the possibility of discipline and instruction being utilized as one.
Instead of these two techniques being separate, Kounin explained how you have to
incorporate different aspects from each in order to create an effective classroom. By
utilizing skills within discipline and instruction, one should be able to manage a classroom
according to Kounin's ideas and principles.
Kounin believes that teachers need to be attentive to all aspects of the classroom. He
believes that effective teachers keep students attentive and actively involved. After
Kounin's research, he realized how teachers handle misbehavior is how they handle their
class from the beginning of each school year. One day while Kounin was teaching a class,
he told one student to stop reading a newspaper and to pay attention to the lecture. While
Kounin only told this one student to get on task, other students who were not on task
suddenly put away what they were doing and started listening to the lecture. This effect
became known as the "Ripple Effect," which is when one student's behavior is corrected it
often influences another student's behavior nearby. Kounin wrote a book, "Discipline and
Group Management in Classrooms," to sum up his beliefs about effective and ineffective
classroom managers. After research, Kounin came to the conclusion that the key to a
successful classroom is not the way a teacher handles misbehavior when it occurs, but
instead what teachers do to completely prevent classroom management problems from
ever occurring within the classroom at all. Kounin also found that good organization and
planning are also keys to effective classroom management while getting students highly
involved and also using proactive behavior. Kounin believed that teachers should have
good lesson movement in order for teachers to have an effective connection between
teaching and classroom management. Kounin described that lesson movement is
achieved through the five things as follows: withitness, overlapping, momentum,
smoothness, and group focus. The term "withitness" was Kounins word to describe that
teachers always know what is going on within his/her classroom. This can be done by
scanning the classroom every now and then so students will believe you are always
looking at what they are doing.
Some practical ways to apply Kounin's approach in a classroom is basically to follow what
Kounin stated to be the five ways to achieve lesson movement. Overlapping can be
applied within the classroom by creating a procedure to use when two separate situations
happen at nearly the same time. For instance, if a student finishes an assignment early
they can read a book, start on another assignment, make a craft, etc. Momentum can be
applied within the classroom making lessons short so students have time to work with
other students in groups, which will let students elaborate on a certain subject and gain
knowledge from other student's connections. Smoothness can be applied within the
classroom by constructing certain body language signs at the beginning of the year so
students can use these signs during a lesson to notify the teacher if they need help with a
certain portion of the lesson so on and so forth. Group focus can be applied within the
classroom by always having some sort of group each day so students have time to
collaborate with one another. 
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Jacob
Kounin
1. Who is he?

Jacob Kounin is known as a classroom management theorist. Around 1946,

he began working as an educational psychologist at Wayne State University.
Many people believe that Kounin was highly influenced by Glasser, and it can
be seen throughout his work. He made people think about the possibility of
discipline and instruction being utilized as one. Instead of these two
techniques being separate, Kounin explained how you have to incorporate
different aspects from each in order to create an effective classroom. By
utilizing skills within discipline and instruction, one should be able to manage
a classroom according to Kounin's ideas and principles. (MW)

2. What did he believe?

Kounin believes that teachers need to be attentive to all aspects of the

classroom. He believes that effective teachers keep students attentive and
actively involved. After Kounin's research, he realized how teachers handle
misbehavior is how they handle their class from the beginning of each
school year. One day while Kounin was teaching a class, he told one student
to stop reading a newspaper and to pay attention to the lecture. While Kounin
only told this one student to get on task, other students who were not on task
suddenly put away what they were doing and started listening to the lecture.
This effect became known as the "Ripple Effect," which is when one student's
behavior is corrected it often influences another student's behavior nearby.
Kounin wrote a book, "Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms," to
 sum up his beliefs about effective and ineffective classroom managers. After
research, Kounin came to the conclusion that the key to a successful
classroom is not the way a teacher handles misbehavior when it occurs, but
instead what teachers do to completely prevent classroom management
problems from ever occurring within the classroom at all. Kounin also found
that good organization and planning are also keys to effective classroom
management while getting students highly involved and also using proactive
behavior. Kounin believed that teachers should have good lesson
movement in order for teachers to have an effective connection between
teaching and classroom management. Kounin described that lesson
movement is achieved through the five things as follows: withitness,
overlapping, momentum, smoothness, and group focus. The term
"withitness" was Kounins word to describe that teachers always know what is
going on within his/her classroom. This can be done by scanning the
classroom every now and then so students will believe you are always
looking at what they are doing. (AO)

3. Why is he important today?

One of the things that makes Kounin important today is his book, Discipline
and Group Management in Classrooms. This book was on one of the studies
Kounin did on organizational and management skills, which was done by
videotaping many hours in classrooms that did not have very many
misbehaved students and then also videotaping in classrooms that had
misbehaved students. The tapes were then analyzed to see what these
teachers did differently. Shockingly, there was no such difference, which came
to the conclusion that effective classroom managers and poor classroom
managers were not different in controlling and responding to students who
were disruptive to the class. (AO)

Front Cover
Front Cover
(MW)

Kounin's key ideas that help make an effective classroom: 

1. If a teacher can correct a misbehavior by using one student as the instigator,
other students within the classroom normally will correct their misbehavior
as well! This is what Kounin meant by the "ripple effect".
2. All teachers should be aware of what is taking place within all parts of the
classroom at any given time. "Withitness" is what Kounin describes this as.
3. According to Kounin, if the teacher can create little chaos between activities,
keep on task, and utilize good time management skills they are modeling
effective group management.
4. All educators should be able to maintain group alertness, as well as hold
each member of the group accountable for understanding the content of the
lesson. Kounin believes that by doing this, all students have a chance for
optimal learning.
 5. In order to avoid students getting bored or uninterested, the teacher should
give assignments and tasks that provide the students with a feeling of
progress or accomplishment when completing the assigned work. Kounin
also stresses the importance of creating a diverse curriculum, as well as a
change in environment every now and then. (MW)

Kounin discovered the fact that if students think that the teacher is alert/aware of
what is going on within the classroom, they are not likely to misbehave. This is
because the teacher has effective classroom management skills that leaves little
room for misbehavior or discipline to occur. By having a teacher-directed
curriculum where the classroom students know who is the "boss" they are less
likely to try and take over the classroom. If misbehavior occurs, it is crucial to
correct the problem within a timely manner in order for the discipline to be
effective. It is always beneficial to try your best to discipline the correct student, if
you misjudge and correct the wrong student, your tactics will be less likely to work
on future problems within the classroom. Always make sure that those who truly
are in the wrong are the ones who get punished, otherwise students who did
nothing wrong will begin to not enjoy being in your classroom. (MW) 

When reviewing these key ideas that Jacob Kounin created, one can clearly see that
each of these concepts are used within today's society/classrooms in order for them
to be effective. (MW)

4. What are some practical ways to apply his approach in a classroom (be specific with
activities and/or links)?
Some practical ways to apply Kounin's approach in a classroom is basically to follow
what Kounin stated to be the five ways to achieve lesson movement. Overlapping can
be applied within the classroom by creating a procedure to use when two separate
situations happen at nearly the same time. For instance, if a student finishes an
assignment early they can read a book, start on another assignment, make a craft,
etc. Momentum can be applied within the classroom making lessons short so
students have time to work with other students in groups, which will let students
elaborate on a certain subject and gain knowledge from other student's connections.
Smoothness can be applied within the classroom by constructing certain body
language signs at the beginning of the year so students can use these signs during a
lesson to notify the teacher if they need help with a certain portion of the lesson so
on and so forth. Group focus can be applied within the classroom by always having
some sort of group each day so students have time to collaborate with one another.
If students tend to go into the same groups, the teacher can write each student's
name down and put all the pieces of paper in a hat to randomly select the groups.
(AO)

(MW)

During group work, students can read books together so they can elaborate on their
connections they made to the story. Each student may connect in a different way
than other students did, which is a great learning experience for everyone.
 Mathematics group work can be helpful because students who are struggling can
receive help from those who have a good understanding of the material being taught.
(AO)

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