By Nadeen Makhzomi, Education Department Intern

From coordinating Massachusetts History Day (MHD) contests to helping host class visits, my co-op with the education department at the MHS has offered me an opportunity to explore the expansive work being done in history education. As I reflect on the past six months, I realize that all I have seen and done has attempted to answer one overarching question: How do we (educators) keep students engaged?

Student engagement is not a new challenge for educators, but concerns have grown amid a rapidly changing educational landscape. The numerous discussions, brainstorming sessions, and trial-and-error processes I have been involved in at the MHS have been fascinating and provided me with valuable insight to confront this age-old question. 

Working on MHD, especially, has made me understand that personalization is key to engagement. The program allows students to pick their own topics and gets them interacting with history in more personal and interesting ways than the classic lecture format. Seeing students so excited and deeply passionate about their hard work was inspiring and gave me optimism for the future of education I aspire to one day help shape. 

Additionally, I had the chance to dive into archival research at the MHS. I am currently helping with the development of an immigration primary source set. Through my sources, I hope to explore the identity struggles immigrants face in the U.S., particularly the tug of war between assimilating into American culture and preserving their heritage. 

I also had the opportunity to co-lead class visits to the MHS, which gave me hands-on experience with teaching. As a history student myself, I often am the one going through the process of learning and historical inquiry, while a teacher is there to guide me. However, during class visits, I served as the teacher. I primarily worked with small groups of students, guiding their conversations about materials in show-and-tells and the MHS exhibit to achieve learning goals. I witnessed students going through the learning processes as they tried to understand what the materials are and why they are important and relevant. 

While I used the toolkit of questions and guiding tactics I developed from observing class visits to help students work through the activities, I soon discovered that the structured strategy I was using wasn’t always effective in getting students excited about learning. What I found led to greater engagement was tailoring the experience to each student. 

Forming personal connections with students, whether between them and me or between them and the materials, helped them to recognize the relevance of history in their lives. By taking the time to really talk to students, more were willing to share their thoughts and questions, leading to deeper engagement and analysis. These small conversations made the visits more meaningful and memorable, hopefully encouraging students to seek out similar opportunities. 

These experiences were valuable to me, not only because they will benefit me in a future career in education, but also because they gave me a greater appreciation for academia as I return to my studies with a new perspective on learning and teaching. 

I can not express the amount of gratitude I have for the education team. Their hard work and dedication to advancing education are deeply admirable and, from the start, have made me feel valued and a part of the team. There is still an endless list of exciting projects the team has, which I hope to contribute to even after I finish my co-op. 

Thank you so much, and I hope to be back soon!