Critical thinking in the elementary classroom : exploring student engagement in elementary science classrooms through a case-study approach

AbstractThere are many factors that contribute to a classroom with engaged learners. In order to have student engagement in the classroom, teachers must create deep connections of content to the students' lives. Knowing each individual student will help the teacher to better engage each student in a deeper and more meaningful way. In the science classroom there is a common issue that students become disengaged because they do not feel connected to the content and the scientists that created the scientific concepts (Kidman, Yen, & Abrams, 2012). This case study approach explores engagement of male students in four elementary school classrooms, ranging from grades 2-5. The students' different backgrounds lead to various moments of engagement and disengagement, both promoted and deterred by teachers and other classroom factors. Although each child is unique in the way they learn, there were many common themes and similar findings found among the four students. The purpose of this study is to understand that student success is based on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement. While these three engagement types are necessary for student success, disengagement is also a large contributing factor to engagement in the classroom. The potential impacts of this study include improvements to learning activities produced by teachers in hopes of higher levels of student engagement, a stronger understanding of the impacts of engagement on student learning, and strategies for working with specific student discourses.Keywords: engagement, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, disengagementINTRODUCTIONElementary classroom teachers strive to have all students focused, motivated, and engaged to learn each day. Engagement is the root of learning in the classroom. Classroom engagement can be broken down into cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, and behavioral engagement (Almarode, 2014). It is important that students are exposed to all three types of engagement each day to be able to achieve academic success. When they are not exposed to the three types of engagement, disengagement occurs and academic success can not take place. While disengagement is something that teachers will observe daily, the hope to understand when and why all four of these types of engagement occur for four average elementary education students and what educational implications engagement can lead to. For the purpose of this study, behavioral and emotional engagement have been combined because they are the most interrelated types of engagement.MOTIVATIONBuilding positive relationships with teachers and peers increases motivation, helps to develop positive behavior choices, and improves academic performance (Conner, 2011). Students become motivated to be engaged when their close peers and friends are motivated and engaged. When a student is not motivated to learn or is not interested, they will be behaviorally disaffected. With support and involvement from caregivers, students' desire and motivation to do well in the classroom increases. This motivation leads to higher levels of engagement and academic success (Kim & Page, 2013). When teachers use more autonomy-supportive motivation, students are found to be more engaged in a lesson (Reeve et al., 2004). Perceived control and autonomy show individual relations to children's behavioral engagement in the classroom. When students feel like they can accomplish something and know what to do they feel good about themselves. Motivation in turn promotes positive student engagement.ACHIEVEMENTAchievement is a primary correlation with engagement in the classroom. Research "in education and developmental psychology point to behavioral engagement in learning as a critical condition for predicting children's academic achievement" (Downer, Rimm-Kaufman, & Pianta, 2007). When a child is not behaviorally engaged then they are unable to achieve academic success. …