The Kounin Model

1
The Kounin Model

• Presented by George Cone, Mike Hamm, and Kari
  Kind-Adams

2
Jacob Kounin

• Is a classroom management theorist
• Wrote Discipline and Group Management in
  Classrooms
• Most people felt discipline and instruction
  were separate entities prior to Kounin
• Believed that organization and planning are the
  keys to engaging students
• Focuses on preventative discipline, that is to
  say, techniques and strategies designed to
  prevent discipline problems in the first place.

3
Concepts for Managing Group Instruction

• Research that Kounin and his colleagues did in
• the classroom showed that activity flow is
• maintained through three types of teacher
• behaviors
• Preventing misbehavior
• Managing lesson movement
• Maintaining group focus

4
Preventing Misbehavior

• The Ripple effect How a teacher handles one
  students misbehavior influences the other
  students who are not misbehaving.
• Withitness The teachers capability to know
  what the students are doing in his/her classroom
  at all times.
• Overlapping The ability for the teacher to be
  able to handle 2 or more situations at one time

5
Managing Lesson Movement

• Momentum To keep the lesson moving avoid
  slowdowns by careful planning
• Smoothness Teachers ability to transition
  smoothly between learning activities.
• Dangle The teacher leaves an activity or topic
  dangling to be handled at another time
• Flip-flop Like the Dangle, although the topic
  is left over from an earlier activity
• Thrust Students are working on an activity and
  the teacher intrudes with some seemingly
  irrelevant information
• Stimulus-bound Some outside stimulus distracts
  the teacher drawing the attention of the class
  away from the lesson

6
Maintaining Group Focus

• Group alerting To engage the entire class and
  keep them active in their participation by
  creating suspense or interest.
• Encouraging accountability Letting the
  students know that their participation is being
  observed as well as evaluated
• Higher participation formats Using lessons
  that define behavior of students when they are
  not directly answering a teachers question.

7
Case study in a nutshell

• Ms. Sands tried every possible way to control
  her unruly 5th grade class, nothing works for her
• Now her assistant principal wants to see her to
  review a classroom observation he made
• A group of parents want to have their children
  taken out of Ms. Sands class.
• When students were asked what they were
  learning, responses were negative. The students
  stated that the teacher is what is wrong with the
  class.
• During the meeting the parents didnt feel as
  though they were being listened to, much like the
  students felt.
• Ms. Sands admitted to the parents that she has
  no way to know who is innocent in her class, so
  she punishes all of the students.

8
Using the Kounin Model what should Ms. Sands have
done differently?

• Planned her lesson better to avoid the students
  being bored and not paying attention
• Not Trivialized the parents concerns
• Used her Withitness skills

9

• Strengths

• Weaknesses

• An effective management tool if done
  consistently
• Focuses on keeping students engaged
• Works for those teachers who are organized

• One must be consistent
• Unorganized individuals will not like the
  structure required for this to work well
• Having eyes in the back of your head is an
  skill, it must be developed

10
References

• http//wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/SKEP_Kounins_and
  _other_proactive_management_strat
• http//wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Kounin,_Jacob