One of the main reasons I switched to a self-paced instructional model was to challenge the students who learned “too fast.” In each of my classes, I had several high-flying students who would learn new concepts quickly and grow bored just as easily. They resented being “held back” by their classmates’ pace, and often posed behavior challenges for me and others.

In a mastery-based setting, of course, there is no such thing as learning too fast! I decided to teach in a way that would let my high flyers soar.

Yet moving to a self-paced classroom created challenges of its own. What if I planned a unit to take three weeks, and some students finished it in two? How could I keep them challenged and engaged, without creating a whole bunch more work for myself?

Here are three strategies I used:

• Open-ended “Aspire to Do” projects: My must-do and should-do lessons were always highly structured. But when students reached the end of a unit, I’d create open-ended projects that required little planning from me, and pushed higher-achieving students to take ownership. The simplest prompts were often the best! For instance, “connect what we’re learning to current events,” or “record a video that explains this unit to your family.” Students embraced that autonomy, and I was always impressed to see the results.

• Teacher Assistant Roles: When I knew some students had mastered the unit, I pushed them to help teach their peers! I’d give them a “TA for a Day” badge, or designate them as Lesson Superstars, to help peers with a particular lesson. Not only was this empowering for my high-flying students, but it made my life easier — and helped the rest of the class learn as well.

• Study Hall: Sometimes a student would ask me: “I’m done with the unit and have an English project due tomorrow. Can I work on it?” I was always happy to allow this: it seemed a fair reward for the student’s hard work up to that point, and gave me the chance to learn a bit more about that student’s other classes. When students had worked hard enough to master my full unit, I never minded letting them work individually on other things.