Designing summer projects; students vs. teachers

Knowledge and learning are like metallic gears; once you stop using them, they will quickly start corroding. To keep students active in learning during their summer break, as to not let them forget their previous knowledge and keep exercising their brains, schools give summer assignments. These assignments and projects are quiet helpful, if given in ways interesting for students and to keep them dedicated towards learning. They can, however, become a burden if students do not find the projects suitable or interesting. So, students themselves should be allowed to design their summer projects as they will create projects fit for them, they will stay active for those projects and show interest to do them, they will actually complete their projects and learn something if the projects are designed and selected by themselves, and this would help teachers by lessening workload for them too.

Some people suggest that teacher designed projects might be a better idea since they would create projects in a way to focus on areas they want students to learn and stay active in. But teachers do not know mindset of each individual students, nor do they know the brain mechanism of which method should be used to make students participate in learning efficiently. Thus it is better to allow students themselves to design their own projects to do in summers, according to what they like and how they want to study.

If students are allowed to design their own summer projects, they would actually create something that they would like to do. This would make sure they would participate in the learning and the actual process of the project itself. It is an efficient way to get students motivated and interested in summer projects, which they would otherwise ignore, drawn in by other activities that are more interesting for them. As a student myself, i would rather be more drawn to complete a project i made according to my interests, than a boring project that doesn't interest me and on which i would give up.

Letting students create their own projects would also in increase participation in summer projects. During summer, going on a trip with family, a student would never care to complete or even look at a summer project given from school. But if that student made the project themselves, they could have created something related to that trip they knew they would go on. That would ensure they brought the project along with them on the trip and did it too. So they had fun on the trip and completed the project as well, a win for all. Similarly, students would design their projects according to their activities, which would make them interested in actually doing the projects too.

If students design their own projects, it would take some burden off of teachers too; to plan, create and monitor assignments for students to do in summer. And if students still don't complete their summer work, teachers would get disheartened by their efforts not paying off. For example, if a teacher has to make tests for 4 quarters alongside class assignments, amongst other things, they would most likely pay little heed to create an interesting summer project that would appeal to students. Teachers would appreciate a little help in their otherwise extensive and restless work of making tests, quizzes, classwork, homework and monitoring students as well.

Lastly, if the summer projects are student designed, the rate of completion of these projects would also increase. As i have seen in classes, barely half the students complete given summer projects, and most make excuses as to why they didn't complete their work. This would change, if they themselves designed these assignments, as students would be more likely to complete projects they participated in making and invested time in designing themselves. This would ensure that they actually complete these assignments, instead of waiting out on them and then making excuses as to why they never got to completing them. My peers agreed that if they got to design their projects, they would be committed to them and would finish them too, not wanting to waste their efforts that they investing in creating that work.

In short, it is better to let students design their own summer projects as to keep them interested in these projects, increase participation rate and completion rate of summer work, while also possibly making them have fun while completing these assignments. I am sure teachers would appreciate some less burden of planning summer work too, while students would be more dedicated and invested in summer projects, which would be a win for all!