"Alright class, you have a summer assignment that you will need to complete by the start of next school year."

For many high school students, that quote is often what teachers will say to them at the end of the year.

It is not uncommon for a teacher to give out a summer assignment, especially in math or AP, or Advanced Placement, courses.

These projects can help to prevent loss of knowledge during the summer months, while students are not in school, or even just help the student to warm up their brain.

These projects should be teacher-designed, because student-designed projects will likely not help learning much, it makes grading easier on the teacher, and it helps the students to know what to expect from the class.

Students, just as electricity, will pick the path of least resistance.

That means that students will almost always choose the easiest way to complete an assignment.

That is one of the reasons that students will cheat.

I know a few friends that will cheat on most of their assignments, just because it is often easier than doing the work.

Because of that, the projects that students choose to complete will not be beneficial to their learning.

The student-designed projects would instead be ones that are the easiest to complete, not what benefits learning for the student.

For example, when students are told to make a story using certain elements of their choice, most students will only use those elements that are simplest and nothing more.

Because of that, the students may not get as much experience of writing a story with more complex, yet more beneficial elements.

If students are told to do a summer project, that they have the choice as to what to do, then they will choose what is easiest and not most beneficial to their learning.

If instead a teacher decides the project, then the student will have to use those more beneficial elements.

Also, if the teacher has to make how the students create their projects so complicated, then the teacher might as well just create the project.

Whenever I have to do a project that involves multiple different choices, and the rubric is very vague as a result, I often can not tell if what I have done is an A+ work.

I specifically had to do a project on

The Catcher in the Rye , where I had to choose between multiple choices including an essay or various different visual projects.

The rubric on that wasn't very helpful when I was trying to figure out if I had done an A+ work, because it did not include much specifically about the project that I chose. While that might be fine when I already know the teacher, so I can ask them, it would be much harder during the summer to know if it is excellent work.

Because of this, the students would either just not care that much about the project and just do what they think is the bare minimum, or they would be pressed into doing two miles instead of the only one mile needed for the project.

While this may be beneficial to the learning sometimes, it would also create much stress that would hinder the student's learning as well as life.

Along with this, because of the vague rubric, the teacher may have a different idea of what constitutes a good project than the student.

If the project is designed by the teacher and the rubric is more specific, then that discrepancy does not exist.

And then, because the rubric is more specific, the teacher would be able to grade it on more objective rather than subjective elements, meaning that all the teacher would have to do is follow a checklist to grade it, rather than vague guidelines as to what to look for.

This would make teachers lives easier, especially just after getting back from summer break.

Another benefit with the teacher-designed project is that it allows the students to know what to expect from the class.

For example, when I was in AP World History, I had to outline the first three chapters of the textbook as a summer assignment.

It was very long and specific work, but it helped me to learn about how the class was going to be a lot of outlining, as well that the class would have most of the notes done outside of class.

If a teacher were to assign a project that involved coloring and such, then the student would be able to reasonably guess that the class would have a lot of coloring and drawing.

Or if the assessment were to be that the student should read and annotate

The Crucible , then the student would expect that there would be a lot of reading and annotating in that class.

If the project were student designed, then the student would not have that advantage of knowing what to expect in the course.

A student may realize when doing the summer project that the class would be far too strenuous for them, if so, then they can change their class to an easier class before school starts.

Students do not always pick the easiest projects, so it may not be the most beneficial for their learning to design their own.

The lack of specific guidelines on the project may make it harder on the teacher to grade, as well as harder on the student to know what is the work needed to get the highest grade.

As well, the nature of the project may give the student insight into what the class is going to be like.

Summer projects should be teacher-designed and not student designed, because students will not pick projects helpful to their learning, teachers and students can have an easier time knowing what is going to get the highest grade, and it helps the student to know what the class will be like.

After all, the teacher is the one who is teaching the class.