Have you ever found yourself being bored when doing a project? Have you found it pointless because you get the horrible feeling that you are not learning? It could be because it was designed by your teacher. Many schools, but not all, require students to complete summer projects in order to get them ready for the upcoming information in those upcoming classes. Many of those projects are teacher designed which various students tend to dislike because of the singular, required format. For example, many projects require students to only draw pictures, only write essays, or only build structures related to the certain topic. Many of these students tend to lack the motivation to complete those tasks because they feel uncomfortable doing an action they are inexperienced with. Even though teacher designed summer projects tend to broaden the student's skills by giving them tasks they are somewhat uncomfortable with, it is better for projects to be student designed so students can strengthen their confident skills, learn at their own pace, and have fun while efficiently studying the topic.

Student designed projects give students the choice to pick a format they feel comfortable with. This choice gives the student confidence in their ability to complete the project and strengthens a particular skill in use. For example, Generic_Name, my niece, decided to do drawings for her summer reading project last year. She would say that drawing her own version of the characters from her favorite book,

Diary of the Wimpy Kid , would helped her visualize the story in her own way so she could visualize effectively when reading books without pictures to guide her. When she completed her task, she felt so confident in her work and even said, "I'm going to do so good on this project. I know my teacher is going to love it." Because of this, it was noticeable that she obviously felt confident in her outstanding drawings. She even became a better drawer from it. She turned in her project and got an astounding grade on it. Overall, the experience she had with the project was very rewarding for her because she got a chance to showcase her confident drawings and had the productive opportunity to build on the skill she loved.

Student designed summer projects give students the ability to learn at their own pace while ultimately having fun. For example, two years ago, my former World History teacher, Mr Generic_Name, had us do a project over the summer about the most important events in world history. Fortunately, he gave the opportunity to choose our own format for the project. Luckily for my friend Generic_Name, he decided to complete the project in the form of a song, considering he was very musically talented. Over the summer he would plan when to work on it that best fit his schedule so he wouldn't be stressed to finish the song. He researched about the effects of World War II and finished his song in no time. He stated that it was one of the best projects he had ever completed because for the first time, he felt like he actually learned something while doing an activity that he loved and had fun with. This clearly shows the effects of giving students a choice in designing their own projects for the best learning experience.

Some may argue that teacher designed summer projects give students a chance to broaden and strengthen skills students are uncomfortable with, however, students don't learn that way. For example, this year in my AP Economics class, a peer of mine, Generic_Name, said she didn't understand the point of the summer project, which was to pick a book about economics, she chose the book

Freakonmics , and write an essay on how economic concepts apply to everyday life. This is also considering that essay writing is not her specialty. She loudly complained about how boring the project was and how it was extremely time consuming. She even stated she got nothing out of it. Because she didn't have fun, she didn't learn anything and was furious by this outcome. This undoubtedly shows that teacher designed projects make students feel like they don't learn anything and overall, make them feel bitter about the subject.

Overall, teacher designed projects don't give the students an efficient way of learning. Some students may find the project uninteresting and because of this, they may not learn the helpful information needed to help them with their classes. However, if teachers do include this option to student within the projects, it could give students the possibility of having fun and actually learning while they are strengthening skills they feel confident in. All teachers want is for their students to learn in an efficient manner in order to succeed, but that outcome won't be possible if teachers give out projects that don't include student decision making. If teachers want to achieve this outcome, they should give student different options to format their project in order for them to learn in the most efficient way so they can ultimately succeed academically and in the future.