Summer projects are dreaded by most students, despite the beneficial continuity in learning they provide during the otherwise schoolwork-free summer break. Such projects are only rewarding if they include information relevant to the corresponding course they were assigned for, making the idea of "busy work" both unecessary and hated by students (as is often the case in more open ended student-designed assignments). Teacher-designed summer assignments are far more effective than student-designed alternatives, as teachers can integrate necessary and prerequisite information for the course, the assignments are less open to interpretation and more focused, and students recieve an assignment that is both more impactful and less work-intensive.

Teachers are well versed in their respective subjects, and have a good understanding of what information is necessary in order to succeed in a specific course. They are able to structure summer assignments in correspondence with key information, helping students start a course off strong. My AP Biology teacher illustrated such a well-directed summer assignment last year. She included information that was necessary for the transition into an AP science course, leading to the majority of the class being well-versed in key concepts by the beginning of the school year. This was reflected by the class average of an A in the first quarter. The alternative of a less directed student-designed project would lack the benefit of being structured by an individual knowledgable in key topics and would likely prove detrimental to both grades and overall understanding.

More often than not, student-designed projects entail open exploration of a plethora of topics. While this can sometimes be beneficial, such open interpretation leads to less directed focus on the actual cirriculum, making the student-designed approach less effective than the teacher-designed counterpart. My computer science teacher assigned such a flawed project during this past summer, requiring students to merely explore and document anything computer related and create a project based on the findings. While such a project took student interest into account, it had little to no focus on the actual coding and programming cirriculum of the course. If my teacher had assigned us a project that required gaining a decent and basic understanding of code instead of an open ended exploration, we would have likely gained far more knowledge relevant to the course and a better idea of what the course's focus would be.

Students already loathe the idea of doing work over the summer. Requiring students to not only complete a summer assignment, but forcing them to design it as well is both aimless and unecessary. Teachers designing these assignments with intentful structure makes the completion of the such projects less rigorous and more impactful, including the actual cirriculum of a given course without forcing the students to do any extra work in designing the project. Students want to enjoy their summer and not be weighed down by a huge project. Cutting down on unecessary work would make students and teachers alike happier, as students have less to do and teachers have less to grade, making teacher-designed projects the logical choice.

Teacher-designed summer projects are more impactful than student-designed ones, as teachers have a good idea of what information is key for understanding of important concepts, they can narrow the focus of the project to aid in transition into the subsequent course, and they are less rigorous and more impactful. Students will appreciate the boost in understanding provided by a well structured teacher-designed project.