Jacob S. Kounin

1. Jacob S. Kounin By Amanda Baumann

2. Some main Ideas • Improving classroom discipline through lesson management • Central factor for managing behavior is teachers ability to know what is going on in the classroom- “withitness” • Deal with incipient problems before they turn into misbehavior • Being able to monitor and interact with groups of students who were working independently while teaching a lesson to smaller groups- “Overlapping” • When students see the teacher correcting misbehaviors of other students, it often influences the behavior of nearby students- “The ripple effect”

3. Some Main Ideas • Teacher gains students full attention before starting a lesson- “Group alerting” • Teacher should be able to provide “group momentum” to help keep students on task • Having a steady progression of lessons without any abrupt changes- “Smoothness” • Boredom can be avoided by provided a feeling of progress, or adding variety to the curriculum and the classroom environment- “Movement management”

4. The Ripple Effect • Teacher gives encouragement to one student when they do something well so that the audience of the rest of the students see, and will want to mimic that particular students good behavior so they themselves can be rewarded. • Also works in the opposite way, bad behavior is reprimanded and other students witness this and do not want to mimic that student’s behavior. • Works better with early childhood/primary levels then secondary and college levels

5. Withitness • Teacher should know what is going on at all times in all areas of the classroom. • Communicated more effectively by teachers behavior than by their words • Students must be convinced that the teacher really knows what is going on in every aspect of the classroom. • Students are less likely to misbehave if they know they are being watched all the time by the teacher • Handling misbehavior on time (right when it happens) is more important than the firmness a teacher uses towards a student

6. Overlapping • Being able to attend to two issues at one time • “Multi-tasking” • Loses it effect if the teacher cannot also demonstrate “withitness”.

7. Movement Management • Important relationship between behavior and movement within and between lessons • Not necessarily physical movement of teacher and student, but pace, momentum, and transitions within and between lessons • In smooth transitions, student attention is easily turned from one activity to the next without losing sight of what is going on

8. A Study of the Ripple Effect • Conducted in two classrooms in a suburb of Detroit Michigan in 1958 • Three different things were measured in teachers: • Clarity • Firmness • Roughness

9. A Study of the Ripple Effect • Clarity involved the directions the teacher gave to the students • A teacher who wanted to make sure there students understood the rules of misbehavior, would very clearly and precisely state what to do and not to do in the classroom • Firmness included how much “I mean it” the teacher put into the discipline technique • If just lightly brushed over, the correction did not contain much firmness • Roughness described the techniques the teacher expressed with hostility or exasperation. • An angry warning look, or a little more pressure applied when touching a student’s shoulder, would imply more roughness in the technique

10. A Study of the Ripple Effect • The reactions • The students in the classrooms observed had 5 different reactions • No reaction- usually students who were not partaking in any sort of misbehavior, so they simply ignored the teacher reprimanding one of their classmates • Behavior disruption- Reacted sharply, they stopped what they were doing . They became worried, confused, and restless. • Conformance- students made a special effort to be good • Non-conformance- seeing one of their classmates corrected had no effect on the student at all, and they still launched some mischief of their own • Mix of conformance and non-conformance- continued to go back and forth from misbehaving to not misbehaving

11. A Study of the Ripple Effect • Findings • The reaction of the watching students to a teachers control of a misbehaving child is related to at least three factors • The newness of the situation • The behavior of the watching children • The disciplinary technique itself, meaning the clarity, the firmness, and roughness.

12. A Final Thought • The firmness of the teachers technique is not necessarily the most important, it is more about the clarity of the teachers instruction and technique on what they expect in terms of behavior • The roughness of the control does not necessarily lead to conformance of watching students, but more often it seems to upset them

13. A Quick Quote by Kounin “The business of running a classroom is a complicated technology having to do with developing a non-satiating learning program; programming for progress, challenge, and variety in learning activities; initiating and maintaining movement in classroom tasks with smoothness and momentum; coping with more than one event simultaneously; observing and emitting feedback for many different events; direction and actions at appropriate targets; maintaining focus upon a group; and doubtless other techniques not measured in these researches”

14. References • Kounin, Jacob S., and Paul V. Gump. "The Ripple Effect in Discipline." Chicago Journals 59.3 (1958): 158-62. Print. • Charles, C. M. Building Classroom Discipline. Ninth ed. Boston: Pearson, 2008. Print. • Kounin, Jacob S. Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Print. • "Classroom Management and Discipline - The Kounin Model." TeacherMatters. Web. 21 Sept. 2010. <http://www.teachermatters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9:kounin-model&catid=4:models-of-discipline&Itemid=4>.