Teacher-designed or Student-designed Summer Assignments?

Summer assignments are imperative for keeping students learning over their break, as well as keeping them active in their creativity. All classes should have some form of summer assignment. With that being said, some people may prefer to be given specific guidelines to follow, others may prefer to take matters into their own hands. Everyone has different learning habits and some are better than others. These assignments should be student- designed because you are more motivated and perform better when given space for creativity, there will be less procrastination, and theres more room for retaining information.

Motivation can take a student a long way. Doing well on summer assignments is important so, it's also important to give students opportunities to be creative in their own way.

Designing the project themselves gives them that drive to make a good project and present it to their teach with pride. Nothing is better than being inspired and excited to show your teacher what you've been working so hard on over the summer when school starts again in the fall. Students know whats best for them and will have a better project thats more personalized and expresses their thought process of said topic if they design their project. Teachers oftentimes struggle coming up with interactive projects that will get their students thinking. Giving them the freedom to create their own type of project is better than having students struggle to come up with ideas.

Summer time is about having fun, but also preparing for the next school year and thats why we have summer projects. Many students dread summer assignments but they shouldn't have to. School assignments shouldn't be stressful, but many of them are. This is why many students procrastinate with their summer assignments because they have no interest in the work. Students tend to procrastinate for long periods of time, until the last few weeks of summer, or even the last few days before returning to school in the fall. From one perspective, if a student can do the project the way they prefer, they are likely not to put the project to the side. Giving students all the tools they need not to procrastinate is key to a well designed, well thought out project.

Most students are just looking to get a passing grade for the work they did in the summer, however, actually learning from the project is important too. Designing their own project ensures they will learn a couple of things in the process. In my experience, I am more likely to learn something new and connect it to other things if I have a hand in the process of making it. This makes it more interesting for me and, in result, I get excited to learn new things. When teachers design assignments in general it may feel a little forced upon students and they simply won't learn as much in comparison to if they were to be apart of the creative process. The whole point of these projects is for students to learn something new or review something they learned the past school year so it's important these projects are designed in the students favor.

Some may argue that teachers can design a better assignment than students because they know whats best; However, students are more motivated when given the space to be creative, being passionate from that motivation will decrease procrastination, and students will actually learn something if they design projects the way they like. Students are the future of the world and deserve the right education tools to succeed. All in all, students should have more say now a days in their assignments and more teachers should promote creative freedom in their classrooms to further motivate students.