Engaging each student in learning comprises a continuous challenge and concern for the contemporary teacher. Educational research confirms the alarming increase of the disengaged students, relating student disaffection to adverse effects on students’ academic development. In the present research through one-on-one, semi-structured interviews, we investigate 80 Greek in-service kindergarten teachers’ opinions with regards to the significance of engaging the disengaged students in learning activities in preschool environments. The interviews based on Creswell’s (2009) interview model, incorporate open-ended and close-ended questions that offer a well-rounded view of the subject. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis of teachers’ opinions show that engaging each disengaged preschooler has multiple benefits on students’ academic development, class climate, and cohesion, and teacher’s self-efficacy, as well. Specifically, teachers’ engaging actions offer students the opportunity to develop their abilities, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging. The interviewees also recognise that increased student engagement levels decisively affect teachers—students’ interactions, offering at the same time clear feedback to the teacher.

This paper explores student engagement which is considered to be one of the biggest challenges facing the research community and the contemporary teacher. Research on student engagement describes strengths and limitations of various constructivist strategies that foster student engagement. Frustration occurs, however, if teachers use a systematic approach to enhance current student engagement. Through one to one, semi-structured interviews, we investigate 80 Greek teachers' perspectives on engaging strategies applied during regular class instruction in preschool settings. The interviews are developed based on Creswell's ( 2008) interview model, with a mixture of open-ended and close-ended questions.Based on qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we present that Greek teachers, in an attempt to involve preschoolers in learning, use a range of constructivist general strategies (i.e. cooperative learning; guided instruction; problem-based learning etc.) and microstrategies (i.e. using gestures, questioning and response micro-strategies). Expectedly the participants identify that constructivist strategies are of the utmost importance, but they use each one at a different frequency.

This paper explores assessment of student engagement which is considered to be one of the biggest challenges facing the research community and the contemporary teacher. Research on student engagement describes strengths and limitations of different methods for assessing student engagement (i.e. observations). Frustration occurs, however, if teachers use a systematic approach to measure current student engagement, and accordingly set learning goals and design the learning process. Despite the growing research focus on survey measures of student engagement that have been used in prior research, there is a notable gap in teachers' perceptions on the assessment of student engagement. Through one to one, semistructured interviews, we investigate 80 Greek teachers' perspectives on methods and tools applied during regular class instruction in preschool settings. The interviews are developed based on Creswell's (2008) interview model, with a mixture of openended and close-ended questions. Based on qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we present teachers perspectives regarding assessing methods they apply in their class in order to assess preschoolers' engagement and if they consider significant to use each method. The participants also identify that observations are the most frequently used assessing method, data of which however isn't systematically used to measure current student engagement and consequently defining academic success.

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