Jacob Kounin

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)

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)