Many schools around the country assign summer projects for their students in order to make sure that the education of the students does not stop during the breaks. Summer assignments can also be a good way the teacher can get their students to get familiarized with the course work for the following year. In fact, more than 80% of high school AP classes give out summer projects. The summer projects assigned by some schools to their students should be teacher designed, reminding us that teachers are in control of their students' learning experience in and out of the classroom.

The teachers should design the assignments because they are the only ones that know what is going to be taught in the class. This way, the teachers can give their students the right amount of prior exposure to the contents of the course before the school year starts. Many of my teachers this year used this tactic. Specifically, my chemistry teacher gave out a project that was due on the last day of the summer break. The project was to read about the history of the periodic table, how it was formed, and how elements and compounds are named; then, we had to answer some questions made by the teacher about what we had just learned. The motive behind giving students this assignment was so that the students would get acclimated to the elements and how to use them. This helped not only students but teachers as well. Teachers often spend many classes building a base of information on a certain topic before they begin the true course work. Summer assignments are a way that teachers can bypass this and save precious class time for the true coursework. An AP Calculus AB teacher in my school did that this year in their class for the first time. They assigned a project that made students use skills they learned in Math Analysis, the preceding course, and strengthened them for use in Calculus AB. This ensured that the students now had a good base of the necessary skills, students had prior knowledge, and she did not have to spend some extra classes reviewing those skills. The teachers were able to help all parties involved by designing a summer project for their students based on what the students would learn in the class.

The teachers should design the assignments because they are the ones that grade them. Since the teachers are who the summer assignments are graded by, they should be able to design the assignment so that it meets their grading criteria. The summer project that the AP US History teachers designed for their students had a criteria included with the directions so that the students would complete the work that was expected of them by their teachers. This way the teachers received a final product that was enough to give students a satisfactory grade for their work. According to a scholarly article on the

New York Times

, students received a better grade, on average, on teacher designed work than an autonomous student designed projects. The article summarized a study that showed that students better grades of assignments that required them to reach a certain criteria than assignments that gave the full autonomy on the assignment. It can be predicted that this was the case because it is easier to grade for the teachers and create a project for the students when they know exactly what the teacher wants and expects. When teachers set a criteria for summer assignments, they can control quality and quantity of the information that the students soak in.

Summer assignments can be designed by the teachers in a way to ensure that the teachers can learn about their students and their skill sets prior to the start of the class. When the teachers know more about the students, it can make the experience of the students and teachers more pleasant. My English teacher in grade eight made her students write two paragraphs about themselves as a part of their summer assignment. Then, she was able to use a more personalized way to teaching when students did not understand a certain topic. She did this because, by her experience, it is easier for students to learn about a topic when it relates to them. This was part of the reason she was one of the more successful teachers in the schools in terms of grades and standardized test scores. Teachers can also use the summer assignments to get a gauge at the level of comfort of the students with the course material before the course starts. My Algebra 2 teacher shared with her class that she gives out summer assignments so that she can see how much her students know the concepts. By doing this she was able to see the level her students were at with their knowledge, and she planned some classes to spend extra time on those concepts to help strengthen that knowledge. The teachers used their summer assignments they designed to help them better the learning of their students.

To conclude, summer projects are something that many teachers use to their advantage for the students. This is important to students because the teachers design the project to ensure they get information about their students to make their students more successful in the class. Teachers can use the summer project to expose students to the course, make sure that the student understands the sort of work that will be expected in the class, and learn about the students themselves. That is why teacher designed summer projects are essential before school starts each year.