Summer projects have been around for decades and have the stigma of being boring or just too much work for one student to handle due to not understanding the information because the project is about a class they have yet to take as schools require students to learn over break. These thoughts provoke the idea of student designed projects instead of teacher-designed projects due to the student knowing what they are capable of and are well equipped for. Schools should allow students to be able to design their own projects in the thought of students knowing what they are capable of, what intrigues the student about the class they are taking, and is equal for all learners and with these points, it allows the student to feel more confident in their required summer projects.

Required. It's the word that comes to mind as students try to complete their summer projects with the idea of only striving to get an A+ on it. There are no other thoughts as students scramble to get it done, but with the idea of students being able to design it, it changes the way that the students look at it. With the ability to design, the students are able to choose what intrigues them about the class they are doing the project for and with that in mind, it gives them more of a push to try and complete the summer project. The idea of choosing what you want to focus on gives nostalgia to the idea of Science Fairs when they were children. The Science Fair was a science project that was required as a grade and students had to complete it, but they allowed for students to design the idea of the project and to learn and explore about what intrigues them and it gave them this look at what science with the mix of combining what you love. The teachers would allow kids to design and create what they wanted while following a prompt and an agenda of what they needed to complete. This ties into doing student-designed projects with the example of doing what you love, but with the agenda and being able to cover certain points that the teachers wanted them to learn in their summer projects.

What about the teachers? That's a question that you would ask. The pros of teachers creating the summer projects is for the unity that it gives the projects making it easier for the teachers to grade, but turning back onto the point of the Science Fair if they created an agenda for the students to follow, then they would be able to grade it efficently. The major issue that could come up is the fact that most teachers use the summer projects as a way to teach the first lesson of year by the ability of already having background information on it and being able to give quizzes on it to test the students knowledge. This is a great point that would come up in these debates, but a simple way of solving this issue is to make the project based on the information of the class by allowing the students to choose something that would be taught in the class either later or in the beginning of the year and to solve the issue with taking a quiz based on the assignments, the student could describe the topic they did their project about and allow it so that it was vague allowing for students to write about whatever their topic was which makes it so that everyone could do the quiz and it wouldn't have to be based on a teacher-designed project.

This allows for teachers to be able to test on this knowledge and still allows the student to learn whatever they want to learn with their project.

Teachers don't create projects that are equal to all learners. When students are able to design their own work, it allows for them to create it in a way that they learn best. Everyone learns differently and teachers don't create projects that effectively help everyone learn and instead it's based of one sole learner or based on how they learn as a person. The way you learn impacts everything you do in a school because projects are based off of the idea that you learn a certain way and with that in mind, if students design their own project they are able to create it in the best way, so that they can retain the information. This allows them to continue learning and to be able to do it in the way that suits them the best and by doing so, it causes them to be more intrigued in doing their work if they are able to understand it more. We have put in place test that allow for audio to be played, so that people who don't speak fluent English can listen to how it would be in Spanish which allows them to more fully understand. Teachers create slides with pictures and text in the hopes that visual and regular learners can both equally understand. Teachers create YouTube videos in hopes that by saying it out people who learn better in listening can listen to the lectures repeatedly instead of having to flip through slides. We have put these conditions in, so that others can learn to the best of their ability with the tools that have been provided. It provokes the idea that projects should be equal in this way, so that when a student does a project they can learn in the best way they can which assures that they are learning during their break. Student-designed project would all for the playing field to be level, so that all learners are able to do their projects more efficently and to be able to be confident in what they have completed.

Finally, student-designed projects allow for students to feel confident in what they are putting out into the world and with the idea that they will be intrigued and given an agenda that the teachers can have faith in. Throughout this essay, we have learned that with these projects, it allows for the projects to be more intriguing for students, it allows teachers to be more flexible and still have the ability to test on this knowledge, it creates the projects to be equal for all learners and lastly, it allows students to be confident in what they have achieved while inspiring others to do the same. 