Engage Me! A Qualitative Case Study of Student Engagement Using Microsoft Teams in Middle School

Many faculty were forced to teach online with inadequate training or resources, affecting student academic performance because of COVID-19. The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive, embedded, single-site case study is to describe teaching online and the use of Microsoft Teams as a student engagement tool as perceived by the faculty in a rural middle school in North Carolina. This study explored how middle school teachers used Microsoft teams to engage students, perceived benefits and challenges, and best practices. Microsoft Teams was chosen because it was one of the most searched for online conference tools by educators during the pandemic. Questions were developed for an online survey, interviews, and a focus group. Data were collected from 19 teachers and administrators in one middle school. Using the adolescent community of engagement framework, interview data were analyzed with categorizing and connecting strategies. Findings indicated that teachers engaged students through MS Teams features of Livestream, chat box, recordings, student-teacher interaction, and class discussion. Using MS Teams included allowing students to be connected to the class, asking questions live, and allowing learning to continue during the pandemic, providing an emotionally safe environment. MS Teams provided interactive features of livestream and the chat box. The challenges of using MS Teams included unprepared teachers who had inadequate training, lacked time to plan and prepare and disengaged students. Students did not join livestreams because they had trouble logging in, navigating the tool, and attending was not required. Recommended practices include training teachers and students in using the features of MS Teams and incorporating interaction and collaboration into lessons. Future research could be repeated in another middle school in a non-pandemic environment in an online or hybrid course. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]