California Standards for the Teaching Profession

Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning

Learner-centered instruction begins with accurate knowledge of students and uses relevance, access, inquiry, formative evidence, and responsive teaching to make grade-level learning meaningful.

California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP) • Practical guide for planning, coaching, reflection, and professional growth

Use this as a professional-learning companion. It does not replace the complete CSTP, California content standards and frameworks, local policy, collective bargaining agreements, credential requirements, legal advice, or the individualized requirements in a student’s IEP or Section 504 plan.

Explore the elements of Standard 1

1.1Using knowledge of students to engage them in learning

1.2Connecting learning to students’ prior knowledge, backgrounds, life experiences, and interests

1.3Connecting subject matter to meaningful, real-life contexts

1.4Using a variety of instructional strategies, resources, and technologies to meet students’ diverse learning needs

1.5Promoting critical thinking through inquiry, problem solving, and reflection

1.6Monitoring student learning and adjusting instruction while teaching

What Effective Practice Looks Like

Learn students’ strengths, identities, languages, interests, prior knowledge, and current understanding through multiple sources.
Make the purpose and relevance of learning visible without stereotyping students or requiring personal disclosure.
Model thinking, provide guided practice, and offer multiple accessible pathways to the same worthwhile intellectual goal.
Use discussion, inquiry, problem solving, creation, and reflection so students actively make meaning.
Check understanding during learning and adjust grouping, representation, pacing, prompts, feedback, or next steps.

Focus Points for This Standard

Plan intentionally

Separate the learning target from avoidable barriers and preserve grade-level thinking.

Teach responsively

Implement IEP and Section 504 accommodations as written and collaborate with specialists.

Study the impact

Use accessibility features and assistive technology based on individual need, not diagnosis-based assumptions.

Teacher Inquiry Cycle

Identify: Name a specific student-learning opportunity, barrier, or question connected to this standard.
Learn: Gather student, family, curriculum, assessment, and contextual information while protecting privacy.
Design: Choose an evidence-informed strategy, success criteria, access supports, and a feasible way to gather evidence.
Enact: Teach, observe, confer, and make in-the-moment adjustments without losing the intended learning.
Study: Examine student work, participation, explanation, transfer, and student perspective—not implementation alone.
Respond: Keep, adapt, intensify, replace, or discontinue the practice and record the reasoning.

Possible Evidence for Reflection or Coaching

student-interest and learning-profile notes used responsibly
annotated plans showing purposeful connections and access supports
samples of student questions, reasoning, revisions, and transfer
formative-check records paired with documented instructional adjustments
student feedback about relevance, challenge, belonging, and access

Evidence caution: No single artifact proves accomplished teaching. Interpret evidence in context, center student learning, use multiple sources, and avoid collecting identifiable student information that is not necessary.

Technology and Software: Purpose Before Product

Purpose	Possible tools	Professional-use guidance
Create and collaborate	Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for collaborative drafting and feedback	Use version history, comments, exemplars, and clear roles; explicitly teach digital collaboration.
Elicit and assess	Padlet or district-approved discussion tools for visible thinking	Keep checks low stakes when formative; inspect item quality and pair scores with student work and conversation.
Model and investigate	Nearpod or Pear Deck for checks for understanding	Require prediction, observation, explanation, and transfer so the tool supports—not replaces—disciplinary thinking.
Access and communicate	Book Creator for multimodal composition	Follow student plans, provide captions and accessible formats, and use human-reviewed interpretation or translation.
Manage and reflect	Desmos, GeoGebra, PhET, or subject-specific simulations when they clarify disciplinary ideas	Minimize collected data, restrict sharing, use approved accounts, and periodically remove records according to policy.

Software is illustrative, not endorsed. Availability and features change. Before use, follow district approval processes and review accessibility, age restrictions, privacy, security, advertising, data ownership and retention, interoperability, copyright, AI features, and the need for family notice or consent. Never enter confidential student information into an unapproved service.

Questions for Collaborative Reflection

What do students say, do, create, explain, or transfer when this practice is working?
Whose participation or success has changed, and whose has not? What barriers or unintended effects remain?
Does the evidence reflect the intended learning, or might language, disability, technology, background knowledge, or task design be obscuring it?
What is the smallest high-leverage adjustment to test next, and what evidence will show whether it helped?
How will student and family perspectives inform the next decision?

CSTP Reflection Questions

Teachers know and care about their students to engage them in learning. They connect learning to students’ prior knowledge, backgrounds, life experiences, and interests. They connect subject matter to meaningful, real-life contexts. Teachers use a variety of instructional strategies, resources, and technologies to meet the diverse learning needs of students. They promote critical thinking through inquiry, problem solving, and reflection. They monitor student learning and adjust instruction while teaching.