Summer is like a brainwash. Students seem to forget everything they learned in school that year over the summer. To try and combat this, many teachers assign summer projects so the students don't fall behind on any of their learning. Students are often upset by this, wanting their summer to be fun and stress free. Teacher designed projects are often long and tedious making them boring to do. The summer projects should be student-designed. Having the projects be student-designed allows for a greater range of creativity, more control over how the project is completed, and creates a better mindset for disgruntled students.

Allowing for summer projects to be student designed makes for a greater range of creativity. A greater range of creativity would encite students to finish their projects faster if they were given a wider range of mediums to work with instead of just paper and pencil, or a computer program. Even when it's not over the summer, being assigned a project where I can make a poster or create a diorama instead of writing a paper is already much more exciting to me because I'm given a bunch of different mediums to work with. I personally prefer creating something big and artsy to sitting down and churning out a paper within a set time frame. The process of creating something huge feel much more satisfying because I can visibly see when I am done. Completing a paper still has a feeling of satisfaction but the overall feeling is dulled because no creativity was released. A greater range of creativity also allows for a much more interesting presentation. A differentation of styles in projects makes the overall project much more interesting and increases the chances of students paying attention for longer during those presentations.

Completion of the project is thought to be most important. Allowing students to control how the project is completed is much more student oriented. A student oriented project should be more fun and less stressful as to not add anything more on top of an already heavy workload. Letting students decide how the project is presented and what the rubric should entail makes the students not only happier, but less stressed as a result. If the students can control what they want to do in the project or how the final product should be, it could help immensely with the overall students happiness and create a stronger student community.

The mindset for summer is just fun, fun, fun. Adding a summer project dampens that mindset. It becomes a burden for students to deal with. No one wants to do schoolwork over the summer, summer is the time for fun! Allowing students to create a student designed project would create an overall better mindset towards how summer project are viewed. I know that I don't want to do school work over the summer. Giant math packets, books to read, papers to write, it's all so tedious and I always end up pushing it off til August, where I'm then rushing to get it all done in time for the start of school. If I were to be given a project that I could control, it would already seem so much better because I would be in full control over what I did for the project or how I approached a problem I encountered with it. It's important to keep a healthy mindset in school so you don't burn yourself out. Summer is seen as a time to destress and have fun and creating a better mindset towards student project by making them student designed is extremely crucial to that.

When I think of school projects, I think of teachers handing them out at the end of a quarter or towards the end of school to be completed over the summer. Projects are a way to either boost or bring down your grade, depending on how you do. Because of that effect on grades, important projects tend to stress students out. When students are given more control over a project it immediately takes stress off the student because they automatically control how their project is made and presented. Teacher designed projects are made to showcase how well teachers teach their students. If more students get a higher grade on a project, the credibility of that teacher goes up. They are viewed as a better teacher overall. While teacher designed projects might have more academic results, having projects be student-designed creates a wider range of creativity, control over how the project is executed, and makes a more postive mindset for students.