Abstract:

A group of researchers reviewed the literature for student engagement to understand what teachers did to meet their students' social, emotional, and academic needs. In a teacher preparation program, preservice teachers (PST) observed their mentor teachers in early childhood through 6th grades (EC-6), bilingual/ESL classroom settings. The researchers began this study because they saw that the PSTs did not clearly understand what teaching and learning meant in a classroom or, more specifically, what student engagement looked like through the observations of their mentor teachers.

The mentor teachers in this study welcomed the extra hands in the classroom from the preservice teachers. The PSTs quickly learned to work with students in small groups or with reluctant readers. The mentor teachers described how they were overwhelmed by the many challenges experienced in the urban classroom. Often, the mentor teachers felt they were caretakers for their students rather than instructors because of the varied problems that they encountered. At the same time, the PSTs had a naive view that teaching was a fun activity to keep the students busy. The PSTs' understanding of teaching did not match the challenges that mentor teachers encountered in the classrooms.

The researchers developed this study to ask the preservice teachers what their concepts of student engagement were in the classroom in a survey and interviews. The researchers could not obtain permission through the school districts’ Internal Review Boards (IRB) for research and practice to talk directly with the mentor teachers. They decided to proceed with the study from the PSTs' perspectives to get the PSTs' understanding of student engagement and how it evolved throughout the semester.

In this mixed-methods study, 15 participants completed a survey and an open-ended interview at the end of the semester. The data was collected and put into the data analysis software, NVIVO for coding (inductively & deductively) and comparative data analysis. The setting was in an urban university in the south-central part of the United States in two urban school districts.

The research questions for this study were:
1. What do preservice teachers know about student engagement in the classroom?
2. What student/teacher behaviors did the preservice teachers observe in the classroom related to student engagement?

An interesting element of the study developed because the PSTs were placed in 2 different districts. The researchers learned the different philosophies that the teachers in each district held about student engagement.

In this study, the PSTs received instruction as their intervention about student engagement through the Framework for Teaching designed by Charlotte Danielson and her team. Once the preservice teachers were in the classroom for observations, they started looking for how their mentor teachers engaged students in the learning process.

In conclusion, this mixed-method study was an initial study of student engagement for preservice teachers and their observations in fieldwork. The study gave the researchers the foundation they needed to continue exploring student engagement in more venues other than the classroom. The researchers also hoped to have opportunities to get the mentor teachers' perspectives about student engagement in the classroom.

Keywords:

Preservice Teachers, student engagement, fieldwork experiences.