Knowledge of Students
Knowledge becomes professionally useful when it is current, respectfully gathered, and connected to a specific instructional choice—not when it hardens into a label.
The official Element
Element 1B: Teachers elicit and solicit knowledge of each student’s assets and needs, including cognitive, cultural and linguistic, social–emotional, and physical and developmental capacities, in the service of increasing active engagement in learning.
What this Element asks of an educator
Knowledge becomes professionally useful when it is current, respectfully gathered, and connected to a specific instructional choice—not when it hardens into a label.
Read together, these indicators ask educators to make knowledge of students visible in planning, teaching, student experience, and follow-through. The aim is not to display every indicator in every lesson, but to understand the full range of the Element and select a focused practice to develop with evidence.
Official Example Indicators—and an SDLA reading
The Commission presents Example Indicators as illustrations rather than a comprehensive or required checklist. Their sequence shows the breadth of this Element and gives teachers, mentors, and coaches a shared language for focused development.
Affirm each student’s cultural
Official indicator: Affirm each student’s cultural, linguistic, and racial identities by actively seeking knowledge and approaches for creating culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining learning opportunities.
Create learning opportunities that draw on students’ interests
Official indicator: Create learning opportunities that draw on students’ interests, prior experiences, culture, and linguistic assets to support active engagement for each learner.
Integrate student voice in planning and sustaining classroom structures…
Official indicator: Integrate student voice in planning and sustaining classroom structures and practices by including student participation and encouraging students to provide feedback.
Provide learning experiences for language acquisition
Official indicator: Provide learning experiences for language acquisition, using evidence-based approaches that leverage students’ linguistic assets and address the diverse needs of all students.
Respond to and implement support for students’ social–emotional well-being…
Official indicator: Respond to and implement support for students’ social–emotional well-being and mental health needs, including those of students who have experienced trauma, homelessness or other situations.
Developing the practice
Learn responsibly
Gather information for a clear instructional purpose, protect privacy, and let students and families revise adult assumptions.
Turn knowledge into design
Connect learner assets and needs with an observable choice about goals, access, participation, materials, or feedback.
Study experience and outcomes
Notice who participates, persists, receives challenge and support, and succeeds; adjust the conditions while learning continues.
Evidence worth noticing
- a planning annotation connecting learner knowledge with an instructional decision
- student or family information gathered for a clear purpose and used respectfully
- participation and student-work patterns before and after an adjustment
- student explanations of relevance, challenge, belonging, access, or choice
Evidence caution: No single artifact proves accomplished practice. Interpret evidence in context, center student experience and learning, use multiple sources, and avoid collecting identifiable information that is not necessary.
A pinch of data integration and digital learning
Digital systems can organize information, improve access, coordinate work, or shorten a feedback loop. They are valuable only when the educator can explain the human decision they support, the information they require, and how privacy, accessibility, equity, and professional responsibility are protected.
Special education IEP systems
See the district systems that carry formal plans and authorized supports teachers must understand and implement.
Questions for reflection and coaching
- Where is knowledge of students already visible in my practice, and what evidence supports that judgment?
- Which students experience the current approach differently from the way I intend?
- Which official indicator names the most important next area for growth?
- What is one affordable, manageable adjustment I can test, and what will I look for afterward?
- Whose perspective—student, family, colleague, specialist, or community partner—would improve the next decision?