Jacob Kounins Research

ED217 Classroom Mgmt.

Becca Cohoon

Ripple Effect:
The ripple effect is the method a teacher uses on the misbehavior of one student that
affects or influences the behavior of other students in the classroom. The ripple affect can
vary depending on how the teacher handles the situation or employs desists.

Characteristics of Desists:
Clarity: stating the name of the student, naming the behavior, why its inappropriate.
(This has the most effect on the other students willingness to engage in same behavior or
not.)
Firmness: I mean it attitude. (Effects those currently engaged in the behavior in
question)
Roughness: anger, threats, physical handling, punishment. (This effects the audience the
most)

Withitness:
The teachers ability to know what is happening throughout the classroom and awareness
of the interactions, both verbal and non-verbal, between students with their classmates
and or the teacher. Two elements of withitness are:
Focusing on the actual cause instead of the effect of the cause (or the victim).
Timing before problem spreads.
Overlapping:
Multitasking. The ability to handle more than one situation at a time. E.g. multiple
groups or assignments.
Movement Management:
Thrust: sudden change in activity without warning. Ex. 1 The teacher all of the sudden
instructs the students to put away art supplies because now we are doing math.
 Dangle: interrupting one activity for something else then returning. Ex1. Stopping a
reading lesson to make an announcement about something non sequitur then back to
reading.
Slowdowns
Overdwelling: too much time spent on directions and details instead of on the lesson
itself. Such as spending too much time on formatting of a paper rather than on what the
paper should be about.
Fragmentation: breaking things into parts unnecessarily. For example have each child
show how to fold a piece of paper - when they could have all held up their paper to show
it was folded.

Kounin believed that teaching in as a group was key to time management, the more time that is
spent with an individual actually leads to less time with each student overall. Using small groups
to teach missed instructions or for reinforcement is more time efficient that individual time spent.

Two ways to maintain accountability and attention in Group Lessons

Accountability: You can use response props such as white boards, response cards, thumbs
up/down etc. The teacher can and should circulate throughout the classroom.
Attention: To make sure the kids are paying attention you can do a varied unison
response such as everyone with striped shirts raise your hand or if you are wearing blue
you may answer this question. Using students names in examples is a good way to
maintain attention as well. I know my ears perk up with I hear my name.

Kounins definition of satiation is: getting to the point of having enough of it. Ways to slow
satiation include making sure they students have a sense of making progress. That they continue
to feel challenged and offering variety in the subject.