Many schools and classes required students to complete summer projects. These projects are generally meant to introduce a subject or refresh the students memory in a subject area. Since these projects are teacher-designed, many of them fail to achieve the purpose which they are meant for and instead just become another tedious task on a kids to do list. Students should be able to design their own summer projects in order to prevent cheating, encourage creativity, and so the students can be more engaged in their project.

One big problem with summer assignments is that they are easy to cheat on. This is a problem because if a student cheats on a summer project, he or she will fail to get what they were supposed to learn from that project. A good example of kids cheating is a summer math packet. Many apps such as mathway and photomath can be used to take a picture of the problem and get the correct answer with all the steps. Students could also just simply find all the right answers online or consult with another student to get the answers. Student designed projects could eliminate the possibility for cheating by making students each produce their own unique project. A good example of a student-designed project that would eliminate cheating is a math teacher asking his or her students to design their own math problems. When the students submitted their problems the teacher could then easily compare one students work to the other students and also to students on the internet. Students could also cheat on other assignments, such as reading a summer book, by just using the internet to look up a summary. Therefore, instead of making students read, the teacher could assign a short essay on any topic, helping students practice writing. Overall, student-designed projects are just harder to cheat on because they require that the student produces his or her own unique project. This can ensure the teacher that the student is actually learning what they need to rather than getting answers from a computer screen.

The second reason that summer projects should be student-designed is that it would encourage creativity. Rather than doing mindless busywork, students would be encouraged to think outside the box and conduct their own project however they see fit. This would make students more likely to complete their summer projects and more likely to actually learn their info because they would have to apply it in order to design a project. A good way to think about this is with science projects. Throughout most students school careers many have to complete a science project. These projects require that students design their own projects that will later be presented in a competition. Unlike normal school events, science fairs like this inspire tons of creativity and even draw in attention with the outside world. Many gifted kids experiment with vaccines, robotics, and even engineering. This application of skill and creativity is able to show the teacher what a student is like, which then helps the teacher understand the student better moving forward. It can also help the student better show the teacher what he or she is capable of and how smart they are. Projects being student designed would also minimize the burden of a teacher to grade the projects. All of the projects would be unique and present new viewpoints on the topic at hand, some of which the teacher might not even know. Also if students make their own unique project they would most likely receive full credit since the only standards they have to achieve is the ones they themselves set. The teachers could simply grade based off of creativity and whether or not the student completed the assignment.

The final reason that a student-designed project is better than a teacher designed one, is that a project which is designed by a student would be more engaging than a teacher assigned one. One example is summer reading. Most of the time teachers assign one book or an extremely limited variety of choices for the student to read over the summer. Many students tend to be extremely bored reading these books or just simply look up a summary and remember it. Instead of doing this students could instead let students pick out their own book, so long as it is a certain topic and/or in a certain genre. If the students were to pick there own books they would be far more likely to actually read the book and be engaged with it. If they enjoyed the book more and actually read it, then they would be more adept in assignments and discussions relating to the book that they read. Another good example of student-designed project is once again the science fair. Science fair projects are basically just student-designed science labs. The difference is that when a student is doing their science fair projects, they are generally far more interested and willing to put more work into their project. There is also another benefit to a project being more engaging to a student. If a project that a student completes is memorable and engaging, a student will be far more likely to remember that info moving forward. This would help the student have a better base of knowledge and perform better in the class that the project was assigned. By designing their own projects students would simply be more interested and more committed to learning over the summer than if they completed a teacher-designed project.

Overall, the benefits of student-designed summer projects are enormous. Giving creative direction to a student is crucial to making sure they retain information during a long break like summer. Students would be far more engaged and motivated to complete a project that fulfills their specific desires and interests relating to a topic rather than do just another summer packet. They would also show far more creative integrity and creativity compared to a normal project. Schools across the nation should integrate student-designed projects into their curriculum.