Reflect, Engage, Include: Reaching Every Synchronous Learner
Chrissy Baldwin: K-12 STEELS Professional Learning Coach Jillian Fletcher: High School Instructional Coach: Math, BCIT, and Career Planning Danielle Schiavoni: K-12 English Language Coach
Administration Supporting: Tiffany Hradil - Elementary Jess Bedford - High School
Index
Plan
Session Agreements
Objectives
Resources
Reflect
Engage
Include
session Agreements
Take an inquiry stance.Ground statements in evidence.Assume positive intentions and take responsibility for impact.Stick to protocol and hear all voices.Start and end on time.Be here now.
session Objectives
Objective 4: Plan
Objective 3: Include
Objective 2: Engage
Objective 1: Reflect
Collaborate to Plan Responsive Instruction
Analyze Engagement and Participation
Design Differentiated and Inclusive Lessons
Understand Learner Profiles and Needs
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
Reflect
Understand Learner Profiles and Needs
Reflect on your Synchronous Learners
How are you building and managing your virtual community?
What do you know about your synchronous learners' interests?
What do you know about your synchronous learners?
How many learners are coming to your guided/live lessons synchronously?
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
Notice/Wonder
Waterfall Chat
Place your notices/wonders in the chat but PAUSE when we say "WATERFALL"
Engage
Analyze Engagement and Participation
How can we offer all learners a way to interact?
Low Floor - High Ceiling Activites
"level the playing field" "lower the barriers, not the expectations of achievement" "promote equity and engagement" For virtual learners, these activities should be engaging, accessible, and flexible enough to support a range of understanding and creativity levels.
Opportunities for Depth (High Ceiling)
Accessibility for ALL Learners (Low Floor)
Engagement and Curiosity
Differentiation Built-In
Open-Endedness
- There isn’t just one “right” answer.
- Students can approach the task in different ways.
- Promotes discussion and diverse thinking.
- The task is easy to start.
- Requires minimal prior knowledge or skills.
- Encourages participation from students at all levels.
- Often rooted in real-world or intriguing contexts.
- Sparks wonder, questions, and exploration.
- Encourages collaboration and discourse.
- Naturally supports varied levels of thinking.
- Students can work at their own pace and depth.
- Teachers can scaffold or extend based on student needs.
- Allows students to explore advanced ideas or strategies.
- Supports multiple solution paths or interpretations.
- Encourages creativity, reasoning, and justification.
include
Design Differentiated and Inclusive Lessons
universal design for learning vs differentiated instruction
Proactive
Reactive
(Novak, 2024)
Include
Creating usable knowledge for future decision-making requires more than just receiving information—it involves actively connecting ideas, asking questions, integrating new and prior knowledge, and strategically organizing and remembering what’s learned. Hattie ranks Cognitive Task Analysis 1.57! Three Strategies Before You Begin:
- Unpack your standards and goals. What do all students need to know and have to do?
- Focus on getting to know your learners.
- Embrace all kinds of data.
Aim for higher cognitive demand. Create questions/prompts that require students to do something (justify, infer, design, compare/contrast). If you use multiple choice questions, invite learners to explain their answers.
Choice & Voice
Groupings
Mild-Medium-Spicy
Plan
Collaborate to Plan Responsive Instruction
Padlets & Resources
Engage and Include Padlet by Program Level.
Relection Padlets by Program Level.
+Elementary
+ Elementary
+ Middle School
+ Middle School
+ High School
+ High School
- Building Thinking Classrooms
Additional Resources Shared (each item is linked to the actual resource)
- What Would X Think About Y
- Which is Worse by Lee Taylor (on SORA)
- Learn more about Padlet Sandbox and TA
- Building Student Engagement (Back to School Session Resources)
Resources
- Building Thinking Classrooms
Additional Resources Shared (each item is linked to the actual resource)
- What Would X Think About Y
- Which is Worse by Lee Taylor (on SORA)
- Learn more about Padlet Sandbox and TA
- Building Student Engagement (Back to School Session Resources)
Bibliography
Be sure to complete your survey in Frontline and mark it complete.
- Agarwal, P. K. (Ed.). (2025). Smart teaching stronger learning: Practical tips from 10 cognitive scientists. Unleash Learning Press.
- Liljedahl, P. (2020). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K–12: 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Corwin.
- Novak, K. (2024, July 8). UDL and differentiated instruction explained. Novak Education. https://www.novakeducation.com/blog/udl-and-di [novakeducation.com]
Connect with your instructional coach
- Visible Learning. (n.d.). Hattie ranking: Influences and effect sizes related to student achievement. https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
Connect with questions about your ELD Learners
- Windschitl, M., Thompson, J., & Braaten, M. (2018). Ambitious science teaching. Harvard Education Press.
Do you know what your synchrounous learners like? If you do, how did you get that information?
Choice & Voice
This or That: Learners have the option to select from two different options to practice a new skill. Dive deeper into a topic: Choice in which video to view, curated reading selection or website selection. Exit Ticket: Draw what you learned today, create a meme to describe today's lesson, or respond to the prompt in sentences.
Ensure that the choice aligns with your learning goal of the day. Options could include:
- Content to explore
- Tools used for exploration or production
- Opportunities for practicing and assessing learning
- Sequence or timing of completion of tasks
3.5k
Even if you explain it orally later
Pose a dramatic question; it is the essential ingredient for keeping the audience's attention. It is often posed subtly at the beginning of the story to intrigue the audience and is resolved at the end.
Work with peers to share ideas and develop differentiated lessons that reflect student interests and promote collaboration.
Work with peers to share ideas and develop differentiated lessons that reflect student interests and promote collaboration.
Collective teacher efficacy - explicit teaching strategy where learners are taught that thinking and problem solving skills are necessary rather than focusing on content itself.
Reflect on who attends virtual lessons and identify their learning needs (IEP, ELL, 504, general education) to support success.
72M
You can present the figures this way...
Pose a dramatic question; it is the essential ingredient for keeping the audience's attention. It is usually posed subtly at the beginning of the story to intrigue the audience and is resolved at the end.
Use strategies like flexible grouping, targeted supports, and tiered assignments to create inclusive, student-driven learning experiences.
Examine how students interact in virtual settings—through chat, mic, annotations, and digital platforms—and how to increase meaningful participation.
Do you know how many have IEPs, 504s, level of ELL, etc.?
What you read: interactivity and animation can turn the most boring content into something fun. At Genially, we use AI (Awesome Interactivity) in all our designs, so you can level up with interactivity and turn your content into something that adds value and engages. If you want to provide additional information or develop the content in more detail, you can do so through your oral presentation. We recommend that you train your voice and practice: the best improvisation is always the most rehearsed!
Here you can put a highlighted title
Is this different from years past(more/less)?
Groupings
Studies have shown the best results from:Random grouping
- Breakout Rooms or Padlet Sandbox
- Be transparent in the random selection
Optimal Group Size Varies:Grades K-2: Groups of 4 Grades 3 -12: Groups of 5-7
We know that learner collaboration is powerful and impactful. Are you satisfied with the level of collaboration among your learners? Do all learners participate? What kinds of group practices work best?
- Pedagogy (heterogeneous/homogenous based on ability, perseverance, or work habits)
- Productivity (Include a strong leader)
- Peacefulness (keep friends or disruptive students apart)
- Diversity (different genders)
- Integration (collaboration of students who normally do not associate with one another)
- Socialization (work with friends)
Examine how students interact in virtual settings—through chat, mic, annotations, and digital platforms—and how to increase meaningful participation.
Mild - Medium- Spicy
Physics: Position, Velocity, and Acceleration vs Time Graphs - Mild: 1 segment Medium: 2 segments, Spicy: 3 or more segments Chemistry - Balancing equations General Science - Scientific to Standard Notations (or vice versa) Math - order of operations ELA: Summarize the first chapter in one sentence. Describe the foreshadowing in this passage. How does this story reflect issues of social justice in the 21st century?
Mild - engaging tasks to get learners in the mindset of challenging themselves. Medium - More complex than the mild task, but still building upon skills. Spicy - Most challenging task that pushes the learner to apply their knowledge
Use strategies like flexible grouping, targeted supports, and tiered assignments to create inclusive, student-driven learning experiences.
How do you build your virtual community? How do you manage your virtual community?
Reflect on who attends virtual lessons and identify their learning needs (IEP, ELL, 504, general education) to support success.
Reflect, Engage, Include: Reaching Every Synchronous Learner
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Transcript
Reflect, Engage, Include: Reaching Every Synchronous Learner
Chrissy Baldwin: K-12 STEELS Professional Learning Coach Jillian Fletcher: High School Instructional Coach: Math, BCIT, and Career Planning Danielle Schiavoni: K-12 English Language Coach
Administration Supporting: Tiffany Hradil - Elementary Jess Bedford - High School
Index
Plan
Session Agreements
Objectives
Resources
Reflect
Engage
Include
session Agreements
Take an inquiry stance.Ground statements in evidence.Assume positive intentions and take responsibility for impact.Stick to protocol and hear all voices.Start and end on time.Be here now.
session Objectives
Objective 4: Plan
Objective 3: Include
Objective 2: Engage
Objective 1: Reflect
Collaborate to Plan Responsive Instruction
Analyze Engagement and Participation
Design Differentiated and Inclusive Lessons
Understand Learner Profiles and Needs
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
Reflect
Understand Learner Profiles and Needs
Reflect on your Synchronous Learners
How are you building and managing your virtual community?
What do you know about your synchronous learners' interests?
What do you know about your synchronous learners?
How many learners are coming to your guided/live lessons synchronously?
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
+ INFO
Notice/Wonder
Waterfall Chat
Place your notices/wonders in the chat but PAUSE when we say "WATERFALL"
Engage
Analyze Engagement and Participation
How can we offer all learners a way to interact?
Low Floor - High Ceiling Activites
"level the playing field" "lower the barriers, not the expectations of achievement" "promote equity and engagement" For virtual learners, these activities should be engaging, accessible, and flexible enough to support a range of understanding and creativity levels.
Opportunities for Depth (High Ceiling)
Accessibility for ALL Learners (Low Floor)
Engagement and Curiosity
Differentiation Built-In
Open-Endedness
include
Design Differentiated and Inclusive Lessons
universal design for learning vs differentiated instruction
Proactive
Reactive
(Novak, 2024)
Include
Creating usable knowledge for future decision-making requires more than just receiving information—it involves actively connecting ideas, asking questions, integrating new and prior knowledge, and strategically organizing and remembering what’s learned. Hattie ranks Cognitive Task Analysis 1.57! Three Strategies Before You Begin:
- Unpack your standards and goals. What do all students need to know and have to do?
- Focus on getting to know your learners.
- Embrace all kinds of data.
Aim for higher cognitive demand. Create questions/prompts that require students to do something (justify, infer, design, compare/contrast). If you use multiple choice questions, invite learners to explain their answers.Choice & Voice
Groupings
Mild-Medium-Spicy
Plan
Collaborate to Plan Responsive Instruction
Padlets & Resources
Engage and Include Padlet by Program Level.
Relection Padlets by Program Level.
+Elementary
+ Elementary
+ Middle School
+ Middle School
+ High School
+ High School
Additional Resources Shared (each item is linked to the actual resource)
Resources
Additional Resources Shared (each item is linked to the actual resource)
Bibliography
Be sure to complete your survey in Frontline and mark it complete.
Connect with your instructional coach
Connect with questions about your ELD Learners
Do you know what your synchrounous learners like? If you do, how did you get that information?
Choice & Voice
This or That: Learners have the option to select from two different options to practice a new skill. Dive deeper into a topic: Choice in which video to view, curated reading selection or website selection. Exit Ticket: Draw what you learned today, create a meme to describe today's lesson, or respond to the prompt in sentences.
Ensure that the choice aligns with your learning goal of the day. Options could include:
3.5k
Even if you explain it orally later
Pose a dramatic question; it is the essential ingredient for keeping the audience's attention. It is often posed subtly at the beginning of the story to intrigue the audience and is resolved at the end.
Work with peers to share ideas and develop differentiated lessons that reflect student interests and promote collaboration.
Work with peers to share ideas and develop differentiated lessons that reflect student interests and promote collaboration.
Collective teacher efficacy - explicit teaching strategy where learners are taught that thinking and problem solving skills are necessary rather than focusing on content itself.
Reflect on who attends virtual lessons and identify their learning needs (IEP, ELL, 504, general education) to support success.
72M
You can present the figures this way...
Pose a dramatic question; it is the essential ingredient for keeping the audience's attention. It is usually posed subtly at the beginning of the story to intrigue the audience and is resolved at the end.
Use strategies like flexible grouping, targeted supports, and tiered assignments to create inclusive, student-driven learning experiences.
Examine how students interact in virtual settings—through chat, mic, annotations, and digital platforms—and how to increase meaningful participation.
Do you know how many have IEPs, 504s, level of ELL, etc.?
What you read: interactivity and animation can turn the most boring content into something fun. At Genially, we use AI (Awesome Interactivity) in all our designs, so you can level up with interactivity and turn your content into something that adds value and engages. If you want to provide additional information or develop the content in more detail, you can do so through your oral presentation. We recommend that you train your voice and practice: the best improvisation is always the most rehearsed!
Here you can put a highlighted title
Is this different from years past(more/less)?
Groupings
Studies have shown the best results from:Random grouping
- Breakout Rooms or Padlet Sandbox
- Be transparent in the random selection
Optimal Group Size Varies:Grades K-2: Groups of 4 Grades 3 -12: Groups of 5-7We know that learner collaboration is powerful and impactful. Are you satisfied with the level of collaboration among your learners? Do all learners participate? What kinds of group practices work best?
Examine how students interact in virtual settings—through chat, mic, annotations, and digital platforms—and how to increase meaningful participation.
Mild - Medium- Spicy
Physics: Position, Velocity, and Acceleration vs Time Graphs - Mild: 1 segment Medium: 2 segments, Spicy: 3 or more segments Chemistry - Balancing equations General Science - Scientific to Standard Notations (or vice versa) Math - order of operations ELA: Summarize the first chapter in one sentence. Describe the foreshadowing in this passage. How does this story reflect issues of social justice in the 21st century?
Mild - engaging tasks to get learners in the mindset of challenging themselves. Medium - More complex than the mild task, but still building upon skills. Spicy - Most challenging task that pushes the learner to apply their knowledge
Use strategies like flexible grouping, targeted supports, and tiered assignments to create inclusive, student-driven learning experiences.
How do you build your virtual community? How do you manage your virtual community?
Reflect on who attends virtual lessons and identify their learning needs (IEP, ELL, 504, general education) to support success.