Summer Projects

As students get older, more teachers assign summer projects to insure that the students are prepared for the following school year. However, in many instances, students are not engaged in what they are learning. Summer projects should be a collaborative effort between both the student and the teacher to insure that all students and teachers feel like they are heard and grow along the way.

Teachers need to be a part of designing summer projects in order to maintain the level of learning and to stay on topic. With teachers contributing to the project, they are able to steer projects down a certain path in order to make sure that the students are getting what they should be out of it. By including teachers into the project building, they make sure that what the students are doing is educational along with reasonable for the class and that the students aren't trying to give themselves minimal amounts or work. For instance, many English teachers make their students read books over the summer and reflect on the book itself. This gives students an individualized opportunity to advance and excel as they get to follow along with what a teacher, a specialist in a specific field, knows about a topic while applying it out on their own.

Students should be a part of the summer project process in order to not only have a more leadership and engaging role, but to also insure that they are learning about something that they are interested in. Multiple reports and experiments done, such as one on

Brain Games , shows that kids have a more creative mind. In a specific clip of a

Brain Games experiment, adults and children were asked to come up with as many pictures or figures as they could with a ball and two sticks. The children more than doubled the amount of images that the adults did. This shows the creativity that students have, and applying that to a lesson will help make the lesson more intriguing for young minds. Students generally like projects that give them a creative boost; for instance, when teachers say they can present something in any way that they want. And allowing students and teachers to work on designing summer projects together keeps the projects civil and in range, but also gives it the opportunity for it to be fun and creative.

In addition, including students in the development of summer projects benefits them and the rest of their classmates. If a child is given a book, they may read it, or they may not. However, if a child gets to pick out a book, they are much more likely to be attached to it and feel the urge to read it, as it is theirs . The same thing applies to students of all ages. If students help design the summer projects, it allows them an opportunity to get attached to something and to take pride in something. In many cases, this causes people to work harder and care more about what they are doing, rather than just taking it for a grain of salt and moving along.

When dealing with students and teachers working together, some might say that there then is an unfair advantage to those who designed the project when it comes time to grading. The solution to this, though, is that it is not that teacher that is grading the projects. When students move on to the next grade level, they have a new teacher. So if a 10th grade student is helping design their summer project, it will be graded by their 11th grade teacher, therefore eliminating any bias. Another solution to this problem is to have students create the summer project for the class that they were in at the time. For instance, a 10th grader could help design a project for the rising 10th graders, thus eliminating any bias along with allowing them to see what they liked about the previous project and make any changes that they think are necessary.

Finally, both parties are equally vital to summer projects because apart from getting a better education, it teaches students and teachers to work together on issues and education, which is something that is hard to find throughout the school year. Throughout the normal school year, teachers are seen as the authority figure with all of the power in the classroom setting. Although that is true in a way, having students and teachers collaborate on projects opens up a door for them to share ideas, as most students feel their ideas on a normal basis are sub-par and often times don't end up sharing them. It helps bridge the gap between teachers and students, allowing them to be more trusting while also gaining respect for one another. By allowing this collaboration, students will be able to see the hard work that teachers put into lessons and such and might end up appreciating it more, while teachers may gain a clearer insight on how students think after working with students.

It is evident that both students and teachers should design summer projects for the students in order to get the best quality work out of the project itself along with helping them both grow as people. By allowing this crossover bridge for students and teachers, it helps the education system grow as a whole and offers both teachers and students an opportunity for growth, and growth is what the education system and teaching is all about.