What to Do With Fast Finishers – Managing Different Students’ Paces [Episode 222]

Rebecca Joyner [00:00:01]:
Last week we talked about pacing Panic because always this time of year I’m hearing from so many of you that you are stressed because you feel behind schedule. So if that is a sentiment that you can relate to, please go back and give episode two 21 a listen now. the same time, many of you feel this stress to keep pushing to get through all of your content while struggling for your students to keep pace with you. And then this is made even more complicated by the fact that you have a variety of students working at entirely different paces within one class period. So what are you to do specifically? How do you manage those fast finishers while not having to put a ton more on your own plate to make managing them work? So essentially this is a differentiation process problem, which if you are new to the podcast, hi, welcome. We spent all of last February talking about differentiation episodes 168 through 172. I number them so that hopefully it’s easy for y’ all to find them. So be sure, go back and give all of those a listen, especially episode 171.

Rebecca Joyner [00:01:14]:
That one is all about differentiating for different levels within the same class period without making it obvious. And that one is going to be especially important for those of you who are like, I need to speed up. My kids are slowing me down. Some of them are with me, some of them are not. How do I manage this so I can get on schedule all of these things? That is going to be an episode for you to listen to today. I want to add something new to the differentiation advice that I originally gave last year and give you specific tips for what to do with your fast finishers. So we’re talking about them specifically and we’re going to walk through it, basically going through each type of instructional resource you may have and what you should do. So if they finish too fast writing their notes, if they finish their practice too fast labs, what do you do with those students that is not going to be a ton of extra work on your plate? Let’s dive in.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:09]:
This is Secondary Science Simplified, a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. Hi, I’m Rebecca Joyner from It’s Not Rocket Science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers, love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all in only 40 hours a week? Are you ready to rock the time you spend in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place, teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode.

Rebecca Joyner [00:02:44]:
First, let’s start with notes. This is the starting point, I feel like when it comes to differentiation. I talked about this again back in episode 168. I think if you are going to invest time in something, differentiating your notes is such a great idea because it is something that will pay back. The time you put in will pay back for you over and over again, year after year. And it’s. It’s just worthwhile doing. I also love it because students can all have different types of notes and they don’t even need to know because you can just distribute those to different students differently.

Rebecca Joyner [00:03:17]:
Especially if you’re doing a packet system like I recommend for organizing all of your instructional resources. You distribute those packets, all of their activities and labs and stuff look the same. But when they get to their note outlines, they can all have a different resource that best serves them and their level. So for example, if you use isn’t rocket science units or full year curriculum bundles, everything’s there for you. You get blank Cornell note outlines. Those would be for your fastest finishers so that they have to write more. You can use the fill in the blank option or you can use the completely filled in option where those students can really just annotate highlight color code to engage with the text while you’re doing lecture notes. And the best thing is no one needs to know who has what because everyone’s page 10 looks the exact same.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:02]:
Everyone’s page 11. Like you’re all on the same pages. They’re just actual how it’s organized will be different. Now if you’re like, I don’t have time for that and I don’t use it’s not rocket science resources, which is fine. All of you are welcome here. One way that I love to engage fast finishers and I tend to find they’re fast because they’re not really writing much down. So one way you can combat this is to kind of do your laps while you’re lecturing and just kind of peek at their notes and make sure they’re really getting what they need to get down. But I try to engage the students in discussion.

Rebecca Joyner [00:04:36]:
So I’m asking them questions. I’m trying to see if they will ask me questions so when they’re done writing, we can still have productive conversation where they’re not pulling out their phone or anything while other students are finishing up. So that is my recommendation for notes. Differentiate your notes, but at a bare minimum, if you don’t have time for that, engage them in discussion. That’s where we’re going to start talking to them now. What do we do with these fast finishers when they finish, you know, reinforcing practice problems quickly or just really any independent work you send them off to do? What do you do when they finish too quickly? First thing I will say for practice problems is I highly recommend when you write up your practice problems, try to give them like 10 questions. And then when you’re assigning it from up front, say, okay, we’re just going to do the odds. Then those fast finishers, when they finish and they set their pencil down or their pen down, you go, okay, now you start working on the evens.

Rebecca Joyner [00:05:30]:
Like you’re just chilling. Go ahead and start working on those. Or a huge thing that I’m a big proponent of, and this is a refrain that I used in my classroom, and I use it in my home, is I constantly say, there is one of me, and in my home right now, there are three of you. Or in my classroom, there’s one of me and there’s 28 of you, or however many you have. And so set this classroom culture. This is a part of our home culture, too, from day one, that if you finish fast, like, you’re not just going to sit there and distract others or get on your phone or whatever, you are a part of this class and you can help. Say, what can I do to help? A lot of times those fast finishers are your brightest students. So use them, don’t waste them.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:11]:
Send them, say, hey, go check in over there. See if anyone needs help with any of their problems. You don’t have to assign them to specific people. Say, hey, go to the right side of the room. I’m going to start on the left. We’re going to work our way toward the middle and just make sure everyone’s doing okay. Engage them, give them a purpose for their time there. That is something you can create in your classroom culture.

Rebecca Joyner [00:06:29]:
Also, for me, this is one reason why I love assigning my study guides. I talked all about this, talked your ear off. You’re probably sick of hearing about it in episode 219, go back and listen to those. But that is something my students can always be working on. When they are done, they finish their practice problems, they can pick up their study guide and be working on that. All right, let’s talk about labs. Because one of the things that inspired me to record this episode was a submission to this year’s podcast survey that I sent out, and one of you said, how do I keep everyone on the same pace during Lab or what can I do for the quick finishers that isn’t more work for me? And so I think you really need to be strategic with your lab group planning. And you have two options here.

Rebecca Joyner [00:07:15]:
One is making sure when you’re creating your groups that every group has a variety of abilities. And if you’re doing that, and so you have some fast finishers, you have some slower students, you have some in the middle. I think it really helps to assign lab roles, so that way everyone plays a part. I personally really, really like to make sure that my students who are a little bit slower, that they get a good role, like actually doing the lab alongside a fast finisher who can help them with that, or they can be like the recorder and they’re writing down the data. I give my fast finishers typically a smaller role because they’re going to be doing a lot of managing knowing them. Another option, too, is to have a group of slower students all in one lab group. And then you divide your fast finishers among, you know, the more average pace students. But then you have that group of slower students all together, and you kind of place them near your lab demo table or near where you’re kind of typically stationed, and you can help them most easily.

Rebecca Joyner [00:08:16]:
So you can kind of help them keep up the pace, not get overwhelmed by the procedures, that kind of thing. Now, one thing I think you can do, too. I typically switch lab groups every lab, but I have not had a major problem with this just in terms of how I’ve run the culture of my class. But I will say, if this is a major problem for you, and you’re like, how am I supposed to constantly recreate all these different options for groups? I would say make lab groups and say, we’re going to be in these lab groups for the whole quarter or the whole semester. And that way, if you’re spending a lot of time putting these groups together strategically, then you’re not having to constantly change them up every week that you have a lab. I personally always draw popsicle sticks to make groups. I usually do that publicly, but you can do this in private just to get you started. And then, because it can be overwhelming, like, how do I arrange these 32 people, but start with letting it be random, and then look at the groupings and say, okay, I’m going to swap these two people, because I can’t have.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:09]:
If you have two fast finishers in one group, they are just going to bulldoze everyone else. Or if you have, you know, multiple people that, you know can’t work together. Kind of divide those up and then say, hey, these are our lab groups for this quarter and let it be. That’ll kind of simplify that for you. Two other things for fast finishers, especially if it’s a lab where they’re working in really small groups, like in pairs or threes, I love fast finishers to be peer reviewers. They can walk around and say, hey, lay an eye on every person’s graph. You know, we finished the data collection, now we’re working on analysis. Whatever you’ve already finished, all yours.

Rebecca Joyner [00:09:41]:
Just go and make sure every single person has labels. You, you make sure everyone has a title. You make sure everyone’s scale is even. Go check in on those things and lay eyes and help each other. Like, I genuinely think this is a great life skill to have again, that we are a team as a class. We’re all working together. We’re not just in it for ourselves and us finishing and then putting in our AirPods and listening to something on our phones while we wait for everyone else. Another option too, is lab equipment cleanup.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:07]:
I’ll send you to scrub beaker so fast you won’t even know what hit you. There are another refrain in my class. No idle hands. There will be no idle hands in this classroom. So I think that helps too. For students that can rush to get them to slow down, and then the students that just finish fast because they’re just brilliant, they are oftentimes more eager to help. So you can let them help and give them tasks to do. Those are really, really helpful things.

Rebecca Joyner [00:10:31]:
All right, let’s talk about projects and tests first. Projects. Again, this is an opportunity for strategic partnerships and groupings. Again, I like to do these publicly so students know it’s fair. But if this is a problem in your class, you might need to do this privately so you can make sure things work out the way you need them to work out. And you get good groupings together with a lot of variety and ability and paces. I also recommend for slower students, especially if it’s an individual project, give them some sort of pacing guide. You can make these yourself or you can have ChatGPT make them for you.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:00]:
Use some sort of AI to say, hey, we have this project. Here’s the rubric, here’s the guidelines. Students are going to get three days to work on this in class. Can you create a schedule for my students so that they can know what they need to finish each day to kind of help them? I think that is so helpful. I do this with my pbl Packs. My, like, long term independent research project packs. I have them for every curriculum. They come in the bundles.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:24]:
They’re PBL inspired, if you will. But they come with like pacing guides to help because that can be a really hard skill, especially for those that are slow. They get really overwhelmed. And then that’s another way too to like, kind of pace your fast finishers. Say, hey, if you’re spend. If you’re getting this done this quickly, you’re probably not spending enough time on this. Another thing with projects, y’, all, again, this goes back to any independent work is a la Mad Eye Moody from Harry Potter. Constant vigilance.

Rebecca Joyner [00:11:53]:
Okay? We are not assigning independent work and then going to sit at our desks. We are constantly monitoring our students. We are making laps around the room. You are getting your 10,000 steps a day. Okay? You’ve never not hit your stand goal on your Apple watch, because you’re always standing. You’re always watching. You’re always going in and slowing down. Someone who’s rushing, you’re always going in and then just kind of pepping up someone who’s going a little bit too slow and helping them keep up the pace.

Rebecca Joyner [00:12:21]:
Another thing specifically for fast finishers. Cause that’s what this podcast is all about, is telling them, hey, I want to save your project, your output, your final product for a sample for students in future years. So can you just make it like extra excellent and you can give them bonus points if you need some sort of reason to motivate them to do that. I have an episode from last year, episode 166. It’s how to work smarter, not harder, and really use your students, your greatest free asset in your classroom to help you. That is something I encourage my highest achieving students to do. Or especially like in an honors class, when you just have those like superstars in an honors class that are just like, so above and beyond advanced, give them that extra push to be like, I want to save all of your work. I had this one student, Joey.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:07]:
I will never forget him. He just was. His mind was special and he just had such a creative way and a scientific way. It was so fascinating how those two parts of his brain worked so uniquely together. And I would tell him, I love your work. Like, I want to save any and all of it that you will let me save. And so that really motivated him to take the time to do things really, really well instead of finishing them as quickly as he could, which he totally could have done. And then he would have, like, moved on to reading a Lord of the Rings book or one other, you know, thousand page novel.

Rebecca Joyner [00:13:38]:
So kind of giving them that can be something you can do too, of like flattering their ego and saying like, you are so talented, I want to save your work. That’s something I love to do with projects. Okay. Last but not least with tests. I’m a psycho about my testing procedure, especially when I had 50 minute class periods. Like we needed every second of the class period so that students could finish the test within that time frame and not roll over into another. Because I’m not going to hold your test for you to finish it at another time. Students with IEPs and 504s obviously who had an accommodation for extra time to get that, but typically I would just give them half the test during the class period and then another half of the test at a different time when they came in so that they got their double time but weren’t just able to see the entire test.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:24]:
So when my students walk in for a test, like I usually have a sign on my door like it’s test day, you know what to do. And I train them to know what to do. They are to come in my class with literally a pencil, maybe a calculator, depending on if it’s a quantitative course or not. Nothing else. They don’t need extra paper. I will provide that if they need it. Like they can just walk in. So typically I train them to drop their stuff at their lockers before they came to, or if not, they’re going to be leaving it all at the front of my classroom.

Rebecca Joyner [00:14:50]:
Like you’re dropping your backpack. You’re going to be at your seat completely bare with nothing there, no water bottle, nothing. I don’t trust you at all. Okay. Absolutely nothing there. So what do they do when they finish? Because they’ve got nothing at their desk. First thing I would love to do as I collect their tests at the front of the room as they finish is, hey, do you want to grab a book out of your backpack or work for another teacher? That is fine with me. But when as they pulled it out, I laid eyes on it to make sure it wasn’t anything that had anything on it that their neighbor could look at and cheat from.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:22]:
And I let them work on that. They were never allowed to have tech of any kind in my classroom on a test day period. I don’t care if you finish early, you’re just not having tech out. So no tech whatsoever. If they have no book to read, no work to do for another teacher, they’re going to Help me. If they want to lay their head down and nap, I actually don’t care about that at all. You may have different feelings about that, but oftentimes I’d say, you’re going to help me. Typically on a test day, I need to be making copies for my next unit packet that’s going to be distributed to all students the next day.

Rebecca Joyner [00:15:53]:
So, hey, I’m going to send you to the copier, you know, and you kind of know who your frequent flyers are, so you can show them how to do it one day and they can make some copies for you. If you share a prep space with another teacher, talk to that teacher. It could also just be a next door neighbor. Y’ all know I had several years without a lab space, so I definitely didn’t have a prep space. But the years that I did, I would have this like lab prep room between my classroom and another teachers that connected. And I would talk to that teacher and say, hey, if I have a student that finishes a test early, could you use them? Is there something you could have them do? Maybe they’re doing a lab in their classroom that day and they’re like, yes, send them to the prep room. I’ll leave some stuff for them to do. What? Maybe hole punching stuff? Maybe running scan trons.

Rebecca Joyner [00:16:34]:
I don’t know. I mean, you might have policies against that. Maybe it’s just again, scrubbing beakers for another teacher. But I can specifically think of Dan, who I shared a prep room with for two years, doing this and us doing this for each other. Because test days especially are the ones where like, you just don’t want them just staying in your room distracting other students. So we’d send them out and say, how can you help? Especially the years where his chemistry students could even come in and they would finish a test. They were obviously the most, tended to be the highest achieving students in that class. They could come into my physical science periods if I was teaching that at the same time and help those students walk around and help me monitor.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:10]:
Or his AP students could come in and help with my on grade level students or whatever it would be and vice versa. So I highly recommend engaging your coworkers in that way and saying, hey, how can we help each other? Or do you need copies? Because my packets are a little bit more complicated to make copies of. You have to know how to collate or else it’s kind of a nightmare how they all print out. But other teachers who don’t do that, like you could go make copies of their lab for the next day for them. That’s just something you can really, really do well and that’s the way you can work together as a team and kind of use each other’s fast finishers. Okay, I hope this gave you some great ideas to get started. Your take home challenge is go ahead. At this point in the year, you know who those frequent flyer fast finishers are.

Rebecca Joyner [00:17:51]:
Go ahead and pull them aside for a chat this week and let them know like, if you’ve had bad expectations or gotten into bad habits with them about what you’ve let them do. Set the tone differently now, like say, hey, expectations are changing. This is how we’re gonna do this the rest of the school year. I need you to be on board with this, okay? And kind of get them on your same page and or go to your next door neighboring teacher and say, hey, do you want to do something like this where we kind of can use each other’s fast finishers to get some tasks done. Work smarter, not harder, teacher friend. Use those fast finishers. Okay? I referenced a lot of other podcast episodes and also My Units, My Full Year bundles. And so if you want links to those, especially that different series, head to it’s not rocketscienceclassroom.com Episode 222 for the show notes.

Rebecca Joyner [00:18:39]:
If you have not left a rating and review for the podcast yet on Apple or a comment on Spotify, I would love it if you did. Especially if you now feel energized and maybe equipped to manage your fast finishers a little better and a little bit simpler the rest of the school year.

Rebecca Joyner [00:18:56]:
All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:01]:
To start simplifying your life as a.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:03]:
Secondary science teacher, head to itsnotrocketscienceclassroom.com challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:10]:
And guess what?

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:11]:
It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in and.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:15]:
I’ll see you here next week.

Rebecca Joyner [00:19:16]:
Until then, I’ll be rooting for you, teacher friend.