Theory of Instructional Management by Jacob Kounin

Presented by: Aderlin Chung Kim Yuk, Beatrice Barnabas & Bernadette Mening Jau

PISMP BI 1 Jan 2012

Brief description of Jacob Kounin

 Conclusion

Key concepts

Theory of Instructional Management by Jacob Kounin

Practicality of the theory

Advantages and disadvantages

Jacob Kounin’s Biography • known as classroom management theorist. • According to Kounin's ideas and principles, one should be able to manage a classroom by utilizing skills within discipline and instruction as one.

Overview of Instructional Management Philosophy

  Kounin’s model believes that teachers affect learners’ behaviours positively and negatively. Maintain instructional momentum

Minimize behaviour problems

Keep students focus on learning task Conducive environment for learning and behaviour

Teacher-centered and prevention-based

Clear transitions between activities

 Teacher Behaviours

• withitness • ripple effect

• satiation • desists • overlapping

Movement Management

• jerkiness • stimulus bound •fragmentation •dangles

Group focus

• group alerting •accountability

• truncation •flip-flop •thrust •slowdowns •overdwelling

Teacher Behaviours  Withitness Desists Ripple effect Overlapping Satiation Momentum

1. Withitness  Definition: A word to describe that teacher always knows what is going on within his/her classroom. Example: aware of events, activities and students’ behaviour.

can tell whether behaviours contribute to/take away from learning situations

Can handle more than one situation at a time

prevent minor disruptions from becoming major.

know who the instigator is in a problem

Characteristics of “withit” teachers Don’t make timing errors

React appropriately

don’t make target errors.

Strategies to Ensure Effectiveness of withitness  scanning the class frequently

establishing eye contact with individual pupils

having eyes at the back of your head.

Practical Application of Withitness in ESL classroom



During discussion: - listens to students’ answer - watches for signs of comprehension /confusion - formulates the next question - scan class for possible misbehaviours.

During instruction: - has all needed materials - Is well prepared

Practical Application of Withitness in ESL classroom



While helping students with problem: -Handle disruptions - Monitor the rest of the class -Acknowledge other requests for assistance -Keep track of time

2. Desists  Definitions:  attempts to stop a misbehaviour.

Strategies to Ensure Effectiveness of Desists  Ensure desists are spoken clearly

Desists are understood

Use clarity instead of firmness and roughness

 Advantages

 Have the potential of ripple effect.  Stop the misbehaviour immediately.

Drawbacks  Resulted in less-relaxed students.  Reduced feelings of teacher helpfulness and likeability.  Likely to misbehave for the next session due to being unaware of the consequences. (Kounin, 1970)

Practical Applications of Desists in ESL classroom   A student who uses other languages during an English lesson, is heard by the teacher. The teacher reprimands and warns the students to stop using other languages besides English. Example desists: “Gordon, I’m going to send you out of this class if you continue using Mandarin”.

3. Ripple effect  Discipline directed to one student affects the behaviour of others.

Strategy of the use of Ripple Effect in the classroom by Jacob Kounin



Kounin told a student to stop reading 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.

Practical Applications of Ripple Effect in ESL Classroom



The teacher reprimanded and warned the student who use Mandarin during an English lesson. The other students who are not using English will also get the impact from that particular student and start to use English.

4. Overlapping 

Definitions:  handling two or more activities or groups at one time, and avoiding fixating on one event at the expense of all other classroom activities (Reid, 2009).  Ability to attend to two issues at the same time (Pryde, 2010).  = multitasking  Kounin found that teachers who can overlap are able to demonstrates withitness better.

Practical Application of Overlapping in ESL Classroom



 if a teacher is conducting small group assignments, and a pair is off task, a teacher may address them from a distance while still conducting the activity. (“The Kounin Model,” 2008).

5. Satiation   Occurs when a teacher teaches the same lesson for so long that the students grow tired of the topic. Too much input

Activity is not an intellectual challenge

Number of mistakes increases

Teacher and students do the same thing over and over

Quality of work decreases

Carry out activity that has a special intellectual challenge

“read” the class to check for signs of satiation

Make positive statement about the activity

Show enthusiasm for the topic

Enrichment activities

Ask HOT questions

Strategies to stop satiation

Change teaching techniques /activities

Practical Applications in ESL Classroom   When teaching language skills, 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 learning environment every now and then.

6. Momentum   keeping the lesson moving briskly, requiring the teacher to plan effectively to avoid slow downs.  By minimizing delays and interruptions, students will not lose interest and misbehave.  Kounin believes that teachers should not lecture for a long period of time to allow students to gain knowledge trough classroom activities and maximizing their allotted time.

Example of how to Maintain Instructional Momentum



1.

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.

2.

Keep a folder to fill-in activities if a lesson takes less time than planned. Be sure to include activities of various lengths and for a variety of ability levels.

Movement Management  Pacing and the ebb and flow of instruction are important in the presentation of a lesson and the maintenance of appropriate student behaviour in the classroom.

Jerkiness

Thrust

Fragmentation



Stimulus Bound

Movement Management

Flip-Flop

Overlapping

Dangle Truncation

Jerkiness   Refers to the lack of lesson smoothness and momentum. For example, a teacher switch from one topic to another topic without sufficiently notifying the students.

Stimulus Bound   When a teacher has the students engaged in a lesson and something else attracts the teacher’s attention, that teacher is stimulus bound.



For example, while teaching, the teacher noticed that someone outside the classroom is called by the headmaster and they talked. The teacher distracted from the lesson in the class and making the students to realize that the teacher is being distracted. So students started to move from their seats to see what is going on outside.

Overdwelling   The teacher dwells on an issue and engages in a stream of talk that clearly lasts longer than the time needed for students' understanding. For example, a teacher is correcting Brian’s behaviour for throwing paper towards his friends during his lesson. The teacher then goes on to correcting other student’s behavior.

Overlapping   What teachers do when they have two matters to deal with at the same time.  Similar with the idea of multitasking.

Dangles   A dangle occurs when a teacher starts an activity and then leaves it "hanging in midair" by beginning another activity.  The teacher might resume the original activity.

Truncation   The teacher engages in a dangle, yet fails to resume the original, dropped activity.  Might be described as a longer-lasting dangle.

Dangles The students had just completed reading a story in their reading circle. As the teacher got up and walked toward the board, she said something like, "Let's look at these arithmetic problems on the board.

Truncations



The students were taking turns reading their answers to the arithmetic problems. As Mary was getting up, the teacher looked around the room and asked, “Now, let's see. Suzanne isn't here. Does anyone know why Suzanne is absent today?"

Flip-Flops   The teacher is engaged in one activity and then returns to a previous activity that the students thought they had finished.

 A teacher says, "All right, let's everybody put away your spelling papers and take your mathematics’ book"

The students put their spelling papers in their desk and, after most of the students have gotten out their mathematics' book, the teacher asks, "Let's see the hands of the ones who got all their spelling words right"

Fragmentation   The teacher engages in a type of slowdown; that is, the teacher breaks down an activity into subparts that could be taught as a single unit.

For example, the teacher tells each member of group to do something individually that could be performed by the group as a whole. In this instance, students have to wait for their turn and, while waiting, might begin to talk and engage in other misbehaviours.



Thrust   A thrust consists of a teacher's sudden "bursting in" on students' activities with an order, statement, or question without looking for or being sensitive to the group's readiness to receive the message.

Group Focus 

• Group

alerting • Group accountability

Group focus  Definition:  The teacher who uses appropriate instructional strategies and activities can keep the students focused on the lesson and can minimize behaviour problems. (Kounin, 1970)

Group alerting  According to Kounin, this refers to the degree which a teacher attempts to involve all learners in a learning tasks and maintain their attention.

Group accountability  Teachers hold the students accountable and responsible of their task performances.

Group focus

 Group alerting

Group accountability

positive

negative

teacher creates “suspense” to the whole class.

students focus their attention to one student instead of a group

Strategy for group alerting

 1. Positive:  Teacher will keep the students in suspense regarding who will be called next by not calling on names when asking a question.  Designing a file card with student’s name written on it. Shuffle the card frequently. Pull the card from the stack to decide which student will answer the question.

Strategy for  group alerting 2.

Negative: Teacher puts the names before a question. For example: “Linda, what is a noun?”

Strategy for group accountability  Teacher uses record-keeping devices such as checklists and task cards to know what the students are doing.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Kounin’s Instructional Management



Helping teachers create withitness image in the classroom.



Teacher detects inappropriate behaviours early and accurately. (Kounin, 1970)

Advantages

Teacher attempts to involve all learners in learning tasks Helps teachers handle discipline problems in the classroom. Teacher maintains students’ attention

Disadvantages

Students do not necessarily take personal responsibility for their behaviours.



Students do not learn a lesson from the use of DESIST because the desists are used to stop behaviours immediately rather than to teach a more appropriate way to behave

Resulted in less-relaxed students and reduced feelings of teacher helpfulness and likability. (Kounin, 1970)

Students in middle and secondary school might not be affected by Kounin’s ripple effect, but students in elementary school does.

This model does not address the issue of teaching learners to discipline themselves.

this effective instructional management keep students focused on learning.



this theory does not affect the smoothness of the lesson

This theory is appeal to be used because…

it challenges teachers to develop specific instructional skills to prevent misbehaviour

this model contributes to improve and minimize students’ misbehaviour.

Conclusion   This is a very useful and effective instructional management in keeping students to focus on learning and minimize behavioural problems.(If teachers are able to demonstrate appropriate teaching behaviours, maintain appropriate instructional momentum, work toward group focus and plan a learning environment that is conducive to learning.)

References  Approaches to Classroom Mangement. (2010). Retrieved January 21, 2014, from http://www.sagepub.com/mooreteachingk8/study/chapter/extensions/ 74554_03ee1.doc Kounin, J. S. (1970). Discipline and group management in classrooms. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Lee, M. M., & Bucher, K. T. (2010). Classroom Management : Models, Applications, and cases (2nd ed.). London, UK: Pearson PLC. Reid, K. (2009). Kounin Model of Classroom Management “Lesson Movement”. Retrieved January 21, 2014, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Classroom-Management1135452.html Pryde, C. (2010). Classroom Theorist Presentation: Jacob Kounin.