In my latest article, I explore how we can use compacting to spark deeper learning in students. We dive into why compacting matters, how it works, what models to use, and how we can incorporate assessment into it.

The Need for Compacting

When my son was in the fifth grade, he came to me and asked, “Dad, why we have to learn the same exact lessons year after year?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He began describing what he had learned in math and how similar it was from the previous year. He then talked about the same review of the elements of literature. “I’m okay with us using the elements of literature but why do they teach us what each element is instead of just having us analyze what we read?”

A week later, though, he struggled with a key math standard and said, “I don’t know if I’ll figure this out. We have until the end of this week. A bunch of the other kids get it but it’s not making any sense to me, dad.”

I could sense his frustration and his boredom in moment and his anxiety in the next. However, I couldn’t blame his teacher. She was from a scripted curriculum where an instructional designer had mapped out each day’s lesson to move through a progression of skills and concepts with explicit instruction and deliberate practice.

On some level, this scripted approach works. There is a science to sequencing skills in a logical order and making sure students build a solid foundation before moving on to more complex ideas. We need to ensure that the learning has a low cognitive load and helps reduce interference (where one piece of learning, or mis-learning, gets in the way of new learning).

The problem is that this science can turn into a system that values pacing over progress. My son wasn’t asking for cheap shortcuts. He was asking for more time to wrestle with hard concepts and practice skills and less time repeating what he already knew. He didn’t want to skip learning. He just wanted to skip useless repetition. What he needed wasn’t more of the same lesson but more time with the right lessons.

In some ways, this scripted approach can feel like old school “pop corn reading” where kids read the same book aloud and no one gets to move at their own pace or repeat something that doesn’t make sense. It can feel a bit like a synchronized version of Mario (the plumber who takes mushrooms that make him taller and then goes into sewers to fight turtles – perhaps even the ninja type?) where everyone has to play the same game at the same level without a chance to repeat, move on, or go in another direction.

I get it. Learning isn’t the same as reading a novel or playing a video game. However, I wonder about the cost in having students repeat so much of what they have mastered without getting the time to master the standards they have failed to meet. This is part of why I love compacting. It’s not easy to pull off and it doesn’t guarantee success. But if we want students to learn the content at a deeper level, compacting can save students time.

 

What is Compacting?

When I taught self-contained (all subjects) eighth grade, my students earned the highest scores in the district benchmark tests. We also had the highest level of growth across the board with all students. Now, I recognize that I had a phenomenal group of students and they had a strong foundation from the previous two years.

Still, what was the secret?

It wasn’t me. I was still learning how to be a quality math teacher. My background was in social studies and language arts. To be honest, this was my weakest year of teaching. I was overwhelmed in trying to plan so many lessons. I was often behind on grading. I struggled with classroom management for an entire day rather than single 90-minute blocks.

It also wasn’t the curriculum, either. I had the same materials as the rest of the district (though I did make some significant modifications).

The biggest difference?

Compacting.

We spent two days a week learning new content as a class and practicing it in differentiated groups. We focused on fewer problems with deeper learning. But then students spent three days a week practicing the standards they hadn’t mastered yet individual, partner, and small group formats. With compacting, we allow students to “test out” content that they have already mastered so they can spend more time on standards they haven’t mastered.

In other words, if they mastered standards, they can skip the lesson. They can then practice the standards they haven’t mastered yet. This reduces redundancy and buys us time. In the process, it can help ensure deeper learning so that students can master the content at a deeper level that involves increased focus and better problem solving.

We often see compacting occur with Gifted Learners. But what I realized when I implemented compacting in my own classroom was that even my “lowest” students with the worst scores began the year with key standards they had already mastered. And their success had a snowball effect.

Thus, I had certain high-achieving students in the Exceeds level in math who simply needed a few extra weeks to master proportional reasoning or how to find an equation by looking at a graph. They got the help they needed. Meanwhile, a student who scored at the bottom level in math (Falls Below) could gain an additional three or four weeks in a school year because they had already mastered a few key standards. They essentially walked into the first week of school with momentum.

Compacting can feel messy and chaotic. It requires additional organizational structures and complex communication with students. Not to mention the sheer number of curriculum materials that students will need as they potentially spend weeks on certain standards. However, with AI tools, we can organize data and design new materials faster than ever (something we’ll get to later in this article).

Compacting doesn’t have to be individualized, either. Often, schools implement compacting by placing students in front of adaptive learning programs on computers. However, you might find that compacting works best when students do meaningful work in collaborative settings. In other words, we can design it to be personalized rather than simply adaptive.

So, how do we make compacting a reality in our schools? It starts wit the standards.

 

Prioritize Standards

A few years ago, I downloaded a simple to-do list app. I wanted a clean space to jot down daily tasks. But then with new every update, they added more features. Timers. Pomodoro mode. Focus music. Daily reflections. Social sharing. Gamified badges.

Pretty soon, the once-simple interface was buried under layers of features I never asked for. I didn’t feel more productive. I felt distracted. This is a small example of something called feature creep, where companies slowly add new features until it becomes cluttered.

This same feature creep can happen to our content standards. What starts out as a set of key competencies grows into a crowded list of any possible thing we would want a student to learn. Every initiative, every mandate, every new priority gets added without anything being taken away. The result? A curriculum map so crowded that there’s no room for depth, no space for curiosity, and no margin for mastery.

As educators, we can’t always control how many standards we teach, but we can prioritize key standards. Some call these “power standards” or “essential standards,” but the idea is to spend time teaching the most important standards. We can ask, “Which standards do students need for future success in this content area?” or “Which standards will be most relevant to life?”

It might mean spending more time on proportional reasoning and early Algebra in middle school math since those ideas keep showing up later in more advanced math. In high school social studies, you might zero in on evaluating sources and crafting historical arguments because those skills matter far beyond the classroom.

You might focus on the causes of the Cold War rather than memorizing the names of every famous world leader from that era. In elementary science, it could look like slowing down to explore ecosystems or energy, giving students the time to experiment and make connections.

 

Assess Students in Advance

One of the key ideas of compacting is that students should be able to tell you what they know, what they don’t know, and what they need to work on next. The goal here is to incorporate student metacognition.

But this requires intentional use of assessment. There are a few ways you might approach this. You might use the standardized district benchmark tests (not my favorite choice because the data is a bit dated and often too broad). You could do short 3-5 question quizzes in subjects like math or reading. I actually love using a rubric for math. So, we look at five problems and we break it down into something more granular (isolating variables, doing long division, accurately finding the problem based on a word problem) so that we can isolate where students are struggling. For example, a student might be failing linear equations, not because they struggle with isolating a variable but because they aren’t correctly dividing fractions or they’ve got misconceptions  with the order of operations. In social studies or science, it could involve concept maps, short essays (like a DBQ), or a performance task.

When I taught middle school, I liked to use a Standards-Based Grid with the power standards broken into specific learning targets. Under each one, I had the mastery level and a space for teacher and student feedback that we would review together in our quick one-on-one conferences. Students could then decide which standards they wanted to master while doing small group collaborative problem-solving or individually using our advanced choice menus.

Some teachers use compacting with a badge system, where each major skill or concept connects to a digital or physical badge. Students begin with a pre-assessment to show what they already know, and when they demonstrate mastery, they earn the badge for that topic and skip the redundant lessons. The focus shifts from seat time to demonstrated learning. Students who complete certain clusters of badges can unlock extension projects or new challenges, creating a clear sense of progress and autonomy. It’s a simple way to make compacting visible, motivating, and student-driven, while keeping the learning goals transparent and achievable.

Choose a Compacting Model

Although compacting makes sense, it can be a huge challenge to pull off in most current school systems. I had the flexibility of teaching a self-contained course, where I could experiment with different approaches. I ultimately landed on a 75-minute math block that included a short mental math / math facts warm-up, a shared single word problem, and an hour-long math lesson. On the first day, we did a fast pre-assessment, followed by direct instruction, and guided practice. In the second day, we moved straight to differentiated independent practice with small group workshops for students who need more explicit instruction. On the third day, our warm-up was essentially a slightly harder version of the pre-test. Students who mastered the standards could then focus on standards that they hadn’t mastered yet (compacting mode). We used the Standards-Based Grid as our tracking system. Students could work collaboratively or individually.

If that approach doesn’t work, you might try a tiered workshop model. Here, everyone begins together with a shared mini-lesson to build background knowledge. From there, students move into flexible groups based on what they already know. Some students work with you in small groups for guided practice, while others head into an independent “extension workshop” that pushes their thinking deeper. This model keeps the class community intact while still honoring different readiness levels. It’s compacting that feels seamless because no one is pulled out or left behind, and everyone has a clear sense of purpose. So, this approach would typically stick with the same general unit (linear equations, for example) but the breakouts would be more granular, with small groups working on graphing, finding a linear equation on a graph, solving algorithms, decoding word problems, etc.

Another approach is the compact-and-enrich rotation. This model follows a simple rhythm. Students start each unit with a quick pre-assessment that determines who needs core instruction and who is ready to move ahead. Those who’ve already mastered the material compact their learning into fewer lessons during the first week, then shift to enrichment projects in week two. This rotation gives students time to go deeper into topics that interest them while still meeting all required standards. It’s predictable, fair, and easy to manage. I would just be cognizant of the need for all students to get a chance to do high-engagement enrichment (including those who are struggling).

You can also use a station or center-based approach. In this model, students rotate through different learning zones in the classroom. One station might include direct instruction, another focused practice, and another for enrichment or creative application. Students who’ve already shown mastery skip the review or practice station and move straight into the extension tasks. It’s a great way to use movement and variety to keep everyone engaged while you target specific needs.

Another option is compacting by concept clusters. Instead of compacting by time, you compact by understanding. Students demonstrate mastery of certain clusters of standards and move forward only in those areas. For example, a student might test out of fraction skills but still need support with decimals. This approach makes compacting more precise and helps students fill in gaps while still giving them credit for what they already know.

If these models seem like too much of an overhaul, you might want to use compacting to re-imagine homework. One of the fourth-grade teachers in my former cohort keeps a standards-based grid of the ten power standards in her content area and uses AI tools to design custom homework for each student in reading. Students practice key reading strategies while accessing texts that connect to their personal interests. The homework is tailored to areas where students are currently failing to master standards, and there’s a separate sheet with instructions and an answer key for parental figures. Although initially training a chatbot to produce the resources took some time upfront, the process is now fast and efficient.

 

Incorporating AI on the Back End

AI can be a powerful tool for compacting because it allows teachers to personalize learning at scale. Instead of relying solely on paper pre-assessments or observation, teachers can use AI to identify patterns in student performance, recommend next steps, and streamline the compacting process. We can take the cyborg approach that Ethan Mollick describes and blend together our knowledge of students with the AI’s analytical reasoning. The goal isn’t to replace the our professional judgment but to free up time so that the we can focus on small group pull-outs, conferencing, and feedback.

AI tends to do a great job at analyzing student work. It can quickly review written responses, problem-solving steps, or project reflections to identify areas of mastery and areas for growth. This helps teachers make faster, more precise decisions about who can move ahead and who needs extra support. It’s not perfect, but it can save hours of grading while providing actionable insights. Please note that we need to honor privacy laws and avoid any kind of personal information from students. We also need to be transparent with students and parental figures about when we are using AI in this way.

AI can also generate differentiated skill practice based on student needs. After a student completes a diagnostic, the system can create customized practice sets, challenge problems, or enrichment tasks aligned to their current skill level. Instead of generic worksheets, students get focused practice that builds on what they’ve already mastered while targeting what they still need to learn. But it’s also important to recognize that there are some inaccuracies inherent in LLMs. We need to use vetted tools with a lower temperature that are trained on adequate data (which is why I love tools like Consensus).

Students can also use AI as a tutor. They might ask questions, get guided explanations, or have the AI quiz them on key concepts. With the right structure and guidance, it becomes an on-demand learning partner that helps students work through confusion, practice retrieval, and build confidence in real time.

However, AI has its limits. It can’t truly understand student thinking or interpret subtle reasoning errors the way a teacher can. It lacks empathy and context, which means it can misread creative or unconventional answers. While AI can make compacting more efficient, it should always serve as a support system rather than a replacement for human insight, relationships, and instructional decision-making.

Incorporate Interleaving

Although compacting works well, we still need moments where students review things they have mastered. Here’s where interleaving works well. Interleaving is when you mix up different types of problems or concepts instead of sticking with one thing at a time. So, instead of doing twenty multiplication problems in a row, students tackle multiplication, division, and word problems within the same assignment. It feels harder. Students might even struggle more at first. But that’s actually a good thing because it leads to deeper retention and better transfer.

Interleaving becomes especially important when you’re using compacting. Interleaving is when students mix up different types of problems or concepts instead of practicing one thing at a time. It feels harder at first, but it actually helps ideas stick better and encourages flexible thinking.

They not only need to review former concepts and skills, but they also need to slow down and figure out which prior learning they should tap into. Otherwise, it’s easy for compacting to feel like hitting fast forward, where students speed through content without learning to apply it flexibly. Interleaving slows things down just enough so students practice switching strategies, think critically, and develop a deeper understanding that sticks.