Research indicates that students forget almost one-third of what they learned during the school year over summer. Without consistent reinforcement of learned material over the summer, students lose essential knowledge about concepts that are going to be built upon in the next school year. In response to that, schools have started to require students to complete summer projects to assure they continue learning during their break to prevent minimal loss of information. These projects will allow students to retain knowledge and learn over the break so they are prepared for the next school year. The summer projects should be teacher-designed because teachers are knowledgable about the information students need to learn, student-designed projects may lead them to do the project incorrectly, and students may not make their summer projects challenging enough to learn new concepts.

Teachers are educated in their field of study and pass that knowledge to their students; they are aware of the information and requirements for students to know for the next school year. By having teachers design the summer projects, they can readdress concepts that students need practice with or struggled with last school year so they will not be troubled by it in the future. For example, in the book

Counting By 7s

, the main character excells at history. Although she excells in that subject, she has trouble with other subjects. A teacher-designed summer project for her may be focused on math and writing while her student-designed project would have been based on history, which may help her retain that knowledge, but does not help her with subjects she truly needs practice with. In addition, teacher-designed summer projects can have students learn new material that will be used in the upcoming school year. Teachers are aware of what will be taught in a course next whereas students are not. These summer projects would allow students to prepare ahead of time for the school year by reaffirming previous knowledge and learning new information directed towards the course. Many educational resources are only for teacher use or are not accessible to students prior to the school year, such as syallbuses and requirements for a course, Khan Academy, and other study sites, allowing teachers to be more effective in designing summer projects than students. Having the summer to complete teacher-designed summer projects will allow students to expand their knowledge on topics they need to learn or struggled with so they are prepared for the coming school year.

If students were to design summer projects, they may be unintentionally flawed or incorrect because the students are not experts on the subject like teachers. Student-designed summer projects may allow students to express their creativity, but can ultimately lead them to learn the information incorrectly. Teachers are guides and resources for students to follow when learning information and asking questions. Frederick Douglass, a slave in the 1800s, became self-educated by looking at other students' papers and reading magazines and books. Although he helped himself become more knowledgable about the world through the new information he obtained, he learned some information wrong because he was not guided or corrected by teachers. Student-designed projects can be precarious because teachers cannot correct students if the project is designed inccorectly. If the project were teacher-designed, then the correct information will be present and learned by the students. The summer projects being flawed can also hurt students. By learning the information incorrectly, they are likely to repeat the same mistakes, making it harder to correct them. In the book

Fish in a Tree

, a girl with dyslexia struggled with writing because the words kept moving. She got into the habit of writing letters a specific way so that when a teacher noticed and corrected her, it was hard for her to stop the habit of writing letters incorrectly. Student-designed projects can give students the freedom to express their creativity through learning and designing, but this also allows for students to do their project incorrectly because they learned the material wrong, leading them to repeat the same mistakes because the teacher is not aware of how the students are designing their projects.

Summer is the period of relaxation and taking a break from school for students. Giving the freedom of designing summer projects to students allows them to make the project easy to complete, preventing them from challenging themselves and learning new information through exploration of the project. Students can manipulate student-designed summer projects by creating a project that is not difficult to do, therefore not pushing or challenging them to learn new information. One example of this was demonstrated by a study of a homeschooled family in the Midwest. The parents gave their children the freedom of designing their own cirriculum for education based on their interests. Instead of centering their cirriculum and challenging themselves with subjects like algebra or chemistry, they studied games and did not necessarily learn anything. By having teacher-designed projects, teachers can challenge the students so they learn the new information about subjects for the coming year, which fulfills the requirements of learning over the break. Teacher-designed projects would challenge students to learn while student-designed projects can be made easy for the student to complete.

Teacher-designed summer projects can prepare students for the coming year by addressing upcoming subbjects and topics students have previously struggled with. In addition, it prevents students from learning information wrong or doing the project incorrectly by giving them specific guidelines. These projects also ensures that students are challenged and learn new information. Teacher-designed summer projects would be more beneficial for students.