Do students know that there are schools debating on whether summer projects should be teacher-designed or student-designed? Summer projects are required by some schools to help ensure student's continue learning in the summer. Through evaluating the different arguments, student-designed summer projects are more beneficial compared to teacher-designed ones because it allows students to chose topics they are interested in and have the freedom to creatively complete the summer project; therefore,students are learning through their summer break.

Having student-designed projects will allow students to chose topics they are interested in, which would captivate and motivate the students to want to complete the summer project. During the summer, many students don't find motivation to do any school work until last minute,in order to ensure they are spending a fun summer vacation. If summer projects allowed to the students to chose topics that interest them, it would help motivate them because the topic is something they like or are curious about. Consequently, students won't want to do a project on something that is boring to them because it leads the students make one of the following decisions: do the project last minute and put minimal effort or not complete the project at all. Summer projects are to ensure that students continue learning over their break; however, students won't be learning when they decide the project is uninteresting, then proceed to make the decision to put minimal effort into the project or not complete the project at all. So, are the students really learning at the end of the day? Putting minimal effort won't challenge or ensure the students are learning and neither is not completing the project. With all this in mind, student-designed projects would help with these issues. For instance, if a student has to complete a summer project about the American Revolution, but the American Civil War is what really interests them with a passion, wouldn't it be beneficial for the student and the teacher, for the student to do the project on the American Civil War because the project would be done at the student's best abilities? When students have the liberty to chose their own projects, like topics as it was discussed previously, this motivates and captivates the student's attention and want to complete the project; therefore, the students are learning over the summer.

Student-designed projects allows the students to have the freedom to be creative and complete the project in a way they chose. Having creative freedom will cause the students to find the summer projects fun and will want to complete them. Additionally, when students can challenge themselves through this process because sometimes they will use new resources or try something new when completing their summer projects. For instance, if a student has to do a project on an assigned book for their English class, the student can decide to produce a video or create an infrographic, instead of a boring, old PowerPoint. The students can learn through this process because they are putting effort into the projects and making them more appealing to the teachers as well as other students, if they have to present. Moreover, students will have fun completing this project, helping ensure that the students will complete the project with lots of effort put into it, which leads to the students learning and students enjoying the process. During the student's summer break, they often tend to try and find school boring during it; however, the creative freedom given to accomplish their summer projects helps motivate them to complete them.

On the other hard, others say that summer projects should be teacher-designed because teachers know best and create an expectation for their students, which is partly true, however, not always. This is flawed in some ways because the projects that are teacher-designed are often categorized as boring because the students freedoms are often limited and don't show their full potential. If students had the ability to show their full potential in completing the project, the teachers will know exactly where they stand educationally in that subject. Another argument for teacher-designed projects is that it is easier on the teacher's side to grade the projects and create a rubric when assessing students. However, this is not a good argument since the teacher's job is to grade and making a rubric for student-designed projects shouldn't be that difficult. For example, if a student does a well produced video on Africa for their geography class with special effects and music that includes accurate information and meet teacher's basic requirements, that is much better than a boring PowerPoint; and the student was continue to learn during the summer about Africa and how to produce a video. In addition, to be reminded, summer projects are to ensure that students are learning during their break; however, with teacher-designed projects,that can never fully be ensured when many students barely put any effort in them or not do it at all. Therefore, teacher-designed projects ,majority of the time, have limited freedom for students and cause students to become uninterested in doing them, so they are not learning.

Summer projects should be fun for the students, so student-designed projects allows the students to freely do as they chose with the project and have fun with it. During the summer, students don't find motivation to do any school work as they are exhausted by the finished school year; however, if the summer projects were fun for them, students will find motivation to complete them and put effort into them. As mentioned before, students will not perform good on their summer projects if they are boring, which is commonly found in teacher-designed projects. Furthermore, student-designed projects helps ensure the students ability to learn in the summer; that being the goal of summer projects.