Students around the world are forgetting more and more from their past school year, due to their long summer vacation. Because of this, many teachers are debating whether or not they should simply give students teacher-designed projects over the summer, or let the students design the projects themselves. Although some may say otherwise, summer projects should be teacher-designed because of easy plagiarism, and teachers' knowledge on how to deisgn and grade a project.

One reason why summer projects should be teacher designed is because of how easy it is to plagiarize someone else's project. When i was in the 6th grade, for fun, our teacher assigned the class to design a volcano that had to shoot up as far as possible into the air, made with paper mache, glue, and other accessible materials. There wasn't much instruction on how to do the volcano, as long as we were the ones building it, and the idea/design was original. Most kids' volcanoes looked pretty amateur, with varying degrees of success. However, the kid whose volcano shot up the highest, was disqualified for copying his design and materials exactly from a project someone had shared on the internet.

If a student can plagiarize someone's work from a project loosely designed by a teacher, then even more students can plagiarize a project that "they themselves" designed.

Another reason why summer projects ought to be designed by the teachers themselves, is because teachers simply have way more experience and understand the criteria on the topics they teach to students. Often times throughout middle school, my teachers would give the students each other's assignments to grade themselves. And afterwards, we would see in the grade book that the grade changed because the students weren't grading the assignments the way they should have been. The student grading was meant to engage the classroom, but it turned into a showcase of how students dont really know how to grade the way teachers do. If students are unaware of how a project is supposed to be graded, they can not successfully design a project that tests whether or not they understand the material.

Some people may say, "but allowing students to design their own projects will allow them to focus more on their work during the summer." Whenever I'm given a summer assignment, I know for a fact it I won't even look at the assignment until maybe about a few days before the first day of school. Which would lead to me rushing a lazily put together assignment and a not so good grade. Giving students the opportunity to design their own assignments will lead to students rushing their projects, and justifying it by claiming that the level of quality meets the standards of their assignment.

It is important to keep students' minds engaged over the summer break, so they don't feel completely disoriented the following school year. I know from personal experience that the break between school years has left me disinterested in continuing to learn and work for the next school year. However, giving students teacher-designed assignments will stimulate their brains and keep them focused over the break.