Some schools across the country require that over the students summer break they complete a project designed to keep them learning at all times. However one question people have is who should create and design the projects, students or teachers. While I could see why it might be beneficial to have a teacher design these types of projects I think that the students would get more out of them if they create it themselves. One reason I believe that students would benefit more from creating the projects themselves is that teachers dont always know how every student learns best. Another reason I think students would gain more from the projects they create is they would be open ended and could be about anything the student wants it to be about. Another reason I think students would gain more by creating these projects is they would be more motivated because they care about those topics and ideas. Another reason I think it is a great idea to have these projects be student run is time constrictions. During the summer students get busy with stuff like going on trips, hanging out with friends, doing any summer sports and just getting to do what they enjoy. So if these projects were student run they could pick the deadlines on days that work for them without getting in the way of there summer plans. While I can see why teachers would want to design these types of projects There is more evidence showing that if the students design them they will get more out of them.

One example that supports the idea of students learning more from there own projects rather then just from projects that teachers assigns. One reason I think this is because not everyone learns the same way. for example some kids do better with writing papers or some students do better with building something. A great example of this comes from my middle school. For middle school I went to a charter school which focused a lot on choice and giving us lots of freedoms that we would not have had otherwise. For example one of the projects we did in science was creating a model of a cell but we could do this anyway we wanted from painting to drawing it. So I created my model of a cell in Minecraft and I ended up learning a lot from that project about how a cell would look in real life. Another example of this comes from another project in my middle school where we got to create ideas for the new location we were going to move into and again for this project we could do it anyway we wanted so I chose to build a model out of Lego's showing the changes and improvements I would make. I was also much more invested in the project because I was using Lego's which was something I enjoyed building and creating things with. I also feel like I got more out of the project because I was doing something that I enjoyed rather then just like drawing my ideas because I really dont like to draw.

Another reason I believe students learn more from projects they create is they get to pick the topics. Allowing the students to pick there own topics means that they can pick something that matters to them or that will have an impact on their lives. One example of this also comes from my middle school, in which we had to do a massive final project on anything we wanted and show it to the rest of the school. For one of these projects a student decided to plan out a summer vacation around the U.S he got to pick the destinations and everything they did, and because he got to create a project that relates to his life he was really excited about it and put in a lot of work for it. Another great example of this comes from Westerns community service days where students get to pick how they want to help their community's in ways such as donating food to food banks, volunteering at local elementary schools, fixing broken laptops from around the county, and many other great opportunities. One of the many reasons these days are so great is because you get to pick something your interested in or passionate about and use that to help the community.

One final reason I think letting students get to design their own projects is such a good idea is the concept of time management during the summer. Over long breaks like summer students get busy with things like online classes, summer sports, visiting colleges, and even just hanging out with friends. That is why students creating these projects would be such a great thing they could set their own deadlines and due dates according to when they are free and dont have much else to worry about. This would also potently give students better time management skills as they would have to learn how much of the project they need to get done by a certain time. Another reason this would be good for students is it would show that they know how to manege their time and be productive even during the summer months.

Many schools across the country have begun requiring that students complete projects over their summer breaks. However the topic of who should create these projects has come up a lot. Weather the students should be left in charge of creating and designing their own projects or if a teacher should come in and design these kinds of projects. While I could see why teachers would want to have control over projects like this I think it would be more beneficial for the students to create these projects themselves. One reason I think students would gain more from designing these projects themselves is they could do it how they learn best. for example maybe one student learns best by writing a paper, while others may learn by building something. Another reason I think it would be great for students to design these projects is because they could pick topics that matter to them. One final reason I think students developing these projects would be such a good idea is that they would learn time management. While I could see why teachers may want to design projects like this for students I think the students gain more from it by creating it themselves.