The choice between making summer assignments teacher designed versus student designed may vary from school to school, classroom to classroom, but making assignments based off of student design may very well be the key to a more successful project as well as prove to be more beneficial to the information learned and absorbed by the students. Although creating assignments from the inner machinations of the school faculty may seem like an efficient and universal way to get kids learning over break, students would much rather work on and complete an assignment designed by them and their peers in the school.

When students get assigned work to do over their much needed breaks from school, 9/10 students will dread the work and either put it off until the last minute or not do it at all. Most teacher created assignments end up being very demanding from the students and/or being a nuisance as it is often viewed as a disruption of the students' summer vacations, making it seem as though they never left school, merely changed settings. Teacher made assignments are, most of the time, recycled work from previous years and can come across as "out of date" in terms of the curriculum and in what the youth of the time may deem worthy of completing over a short period of bliss and no responsibilities. For example, when a teacher assigns an annotation and project on a book that has been read over and over again by the school, students will not be motivated to seek completion of said assignment.

Students designing their own work could very much prove effective in terms of completion rates and motivation for the schools' population to do the work that they have created for themselves. This creates assignments that are doable, fun, relevant, and unique to past work given in previous years, adding a refreshing take on summer work for school that is also a way to promote a longer lasting education. The process of designing summer assignments can, in itself, me made into an assignment and may be used as a teaching moment for both the students and teachers alike. The creativity aspect of truly building an idea from the ground up will boost productivity and will incentivize making a well rounded project for the months away from school. When a student goes from being given a book to read and annotate about the impacts of World War II, to making a short film or presentation about the same topic, the whole assignment goes from a mundane and time wasting chore, to a fun and creative way to express the same idea as the former assignment.

Having a student designed summer assignment would be very beneficial to the students' learning experience and may help boost morale within the school for appier kids and a less stressful summer break. In the end, it makes a lot of sense to put students in charge of designing their own projects because at the end of the day, they are going to be the ones completing them and in turn benefiting from the work put being into it.