Summer projects are supposed to help students retain information from the last year while also helping them prepare for the upcoming year. However, there is a debate over if they should be student designed or teacher designed. Some say that students should be the ones to come up with what they will do since it is more reflective of life after school. But this would only lead to students doing a variety of projects which end up being off topic and of low quality. Summer projects should be teacher designed since it lets teachers customize it to their teaching style and curriculum, makes grading easier since they have a set standard that can be evaluated, and give the student something to guide them as they learn for the next year.

Teachers should be the ones to design summer projects since it would better reflect what the student needs to know for the upcoming school year. Research has shown that over 80% of information from the last school year is lost over summer break. This would mean that student, who are likely to procrastinate starting their project, would not know what to do and just do something to get it over with. However, if teachers assigned a project to complete, students would be able to work on it knowing what they had to do and what they have to remember. It also serves to introduce students to their teacher's way of teaching, making the transition back to the classroom after break easier to do.

Grading a project is difficult if you do not have a standard to follow. Student designed projects would vary on subject matter and project medium. Comparing a presentation on why Pluto is a planet to a model representation of the nucleus of a cell is near impossible. Teacher designed projects would allow the students to make a project that would follow a standard that makes grading easier, while not just leaving students to struggle to find what to do. Student's summer projects can then be used to gauge the level that the class it at, making it a good way of knowing how to pace the rest of the year.

While students may feel that they can come up with a project on their own, the actual project they create is likely to be not what they wanted. From my own experience, I can assure you that no matter how good the concept, the actual final product will not be as good as you thought it would be. Teacher planned projects give you a basic idea of what you can do and how you can do it. It is far more helpful for a student to have a planned project and know what you are doing that to plan your own project and have no idea of what to do. By knowing what to do and how to do it, a student can learn much more and be less stressed about doing projects over summer.

By having teachers design summer projects, both students and teachers will benefit. Students get a basic idea of what they will have to do for the project and how to do it. Teachers can tailor it to fit their style of teaching and the curriculum for the next year. It also makes the grading process much easier and provides useful information about the next years class. Teacher designed projects are the best option for summer projects.