I think the rescue class is a great class, but like most classes you get out of it what you put into it. You can cruise through the class and just get things done or you can challenge yourself by treating all of the open water exercises as real life situations (from personal experience, I think this also makes the class more fun). I would also recommend that you ask your instructor to make things challenging, such as for the search and recovery, don't let them hide a bright orange lift bag for you to find, but rather search for a small black weight bag. Furthermore, rather than recovering the weight bag (which is obviously very easy to tie a lift bag to), why not recover a log or an oddly shaped rock where you would not only have to consider how to tie the lift bag, but also weight estimation, and center of gravity.
I think the difference in the end is a rescue diver vs. a confident rescue diver.