Jacob Kounin

Kounin_Model.pdf

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

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)

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)

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)

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

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".
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.
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.
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.
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)

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)