Schools all across the nation are requiring students to complete projects over summer break. Research shows that these assignments are extremely helpful to a students learning power. Although there are benefits for completing these summer projects, students and teachers are conflicted with one major underlying issue. Should teachers design the assignments, or students?

From personal experience, teachers should definitely design summer projects for students. When I was in the seventh grade, my science teacher gave us a project to complete over the summer, but there was no strict topic on the assignment. Our teacher told us, "complete this project over summer break and be sure to come up with a creative design for your assignment." Given these vague directions, students created poorly structured projects that included little, to the very least of science material within their work. Why were their projects created so poorly? It is simple, over summer break the last thing on a students mind is school work, but when assigned a project that allows the student to design it however they desire, their work will inevitably lead to a disaster.

A recent study showed that students who were assigned a project that was designed by a teacher increased the likelihood of having higher grades when the next school year started. The logical reasoning behind this conclusion is because teachers know what topics the students should focus on over break. Teacher designed projects challenge a students intelligence by enabling them to put in time and effort into their work rather than putting in little to no dedication at all. For example, if an individual was given a teacher designed project about pollution and how it affects our world, the student would be required to put in as much effort possible into the specific topic that is assigned, rather than creating a sorry topic of their own.

Given this information, hopefully schools all across the nation will continue to assign teacher designed projects over the summer. By doing so, it is certain students will learn more, be more attentive on a specific topic, and enable them to do their absolute best on any future assignment. Please take the time to share this issue with as many individuals as you can to fight against this growing problem.