1) Jacob Kounin's theory of classroom management emphasizes the importance of organization, planning, teacher involvement, and keeping students actively engaged.
2) Key components of Kounin's theory include withitness, overlapping, momentum, smoothness, and group alerting which help teachers maintain control and keep lessons moving efficiently.
3) The document then discusses a group project applying Kounin's theory, where members researched different components and created a presentation to explain the theory and its usefulness for teachers.
1. Jacob Kounin<br />Jacob Kounin found that organization and planning were keys to good classroom management along with proactive behavior on the part of the teacher and high levels of student involvement. Teachers also need to have good lesson movement. This emphasizes the strong relationship between effective management and effective teaching. It is maintained through withitness, overlapping, momentum, smoothness, and group alerting. <br />When I become a teacher I will use withintness by knowing what is going on in the classroom at all times. I must have eyes in the back of my head and do this not only when I am in a small group setting, but when I am presenting a topic or students are working as individuals. <br />I can use overlapping by doing multiple things at the same time. For example, in the math class I will give my students short tasks while I collect math books from some students and start to correct them. Then when they finish the test, I will tell them to do the questions that are written in the book while I start to correct the papers test. <br />Momentum can apply. Not only do I need to know what is going to happen next, but need to be prepared for unexpected changes such as the bulb burning out in the projector.I want to keep the lesson moving briskly, Not dwelling on a minor or already understood concept. Correct students without nagging and quickly return to the lesson and have students move from one activity to the next without being forced to wait for each other and each step in the transition. (Wolfgang -2001). <br />In addition, I will use smoothness by maintaining direction in the lesson and not losing focus, going on tangents, or being diverted by irrelevant information or incidents. Transitioning from one learning activity to another without a lot of disruption is important. This goal includes pre-planning the lesson so that extraneous matters are realized ahead of time and taken care of. Supplies for the class should always be organized before class begins and close to where they will be used. Once students are doing their work and engaged, do not distract them. Leave them to their work and assist individuals with questions or needs. Furthermore, group alerting is important to keep all students actively participating and to create suspense or interest and includes calling on students at random by asking a question only after scanning the room to make sure students are paying attention, raising group interest by interspersing suspense between questions and physically moving around the room and asking students to show what they have done (Kounin -1970). This theory is beautiful and full of useful strategies .It is important to manage the classroom, and to gain students full attention, … and to control the behavior of students.<br />Our project:<br />Initially we made meeting with the leader to explain the important parts of Kounin theory and the aims of the project, then she divided the parts for each member of the group and asked us search about partials which we took try to find video suitable to each stage, using sources from the internet or books from the library and she gave us a week to do this search.<br />I took the application part and searched about it from internet. I found a lot of information and pictures from various sources, and then summarized the information and arranged it. But I didn’t find any appropriate video from searching YouTube. After that, I went to the university library and looked in some psychology books, I obtained valuable information and guided my colleagues to these books. Next, I summarized the information from the papers and typed it in a document. After that, I sent all my work to the leader’s email .Next the leader made feedback about it and put it in PowerPoint slides.<br />I learnt many things from this experience and group project, I learnt that the factors of success any presentation are know the aims of the project, write in the main ideas addressed and practice the performance of the presentation. Division of work between members of the group like information gathering and organization is important, too. Preparing the presentation needs cooperation and diligence. I consider this show a thumbnail image of the work that I will do when I become a teacher, and the experience taught me to be bold and confront myself; that’s important to a teacher.<br />Sara Ibrahim<br />.<br />