Educators engage in professional learning that helps them create high-quality learning experiences for all students, honoring all aspects of identity students bring to the school. Educators build capacity to serve the whole child, deepening their understanding of who their students are and how their unique experiences impact what they need at school. Educators learn to recognize each student’s strengths and personalize learning to maximize impact on a range of student outcomes.

Educators who plan, facilitate, and design professional learning at the system and school levels hold primary responsibility for creating job-embedded, collaborative learning experiences so educators understand and apply practices that serve all students, whether in classrooms or other learning environments. Educators at all levels have responsibility and agency to support their colleagues in their own development and in practicing and improving new strategies with a range of students.

Here are the main constructs of the Learning Practices standard.

Educators understand students’ historical and societal contexts.

Educators learn about contextual aspects of student development and experience, increasing their knowledge of local, national, and global history and contexts so they understand better the experiences and needs of the students, families, and communities they serve. To meaningfully serve their students, educators are responsible for understanding the history of community members and families in their national or local context and, in particular, how that history shapes what their students and communities experience today within and beyond education.

Educators explore the complexities of how students’ unique characteristics affect their lives and their contexts for learning. They seek to understand how all aspects of students’ lives impact their opportunity and access to effective schooling, including living situations, family, and caretaker arrangements, home language, and physical, emotional, and mental health.

Educators engage in professional learning to understand the numerous barriers that can prevent adults’ and students’ access and opportunities to learn. Educators gain skills and practices to eliminate barriers to learning at whatever level they serve.

Educators collaborate to deepen their knowledge about their schools’ students, adults, and communities. Teams of educators increase their impact by committing to collectively developing the knowledge and skills to serve each student, leveraging individual strengths, sharing knowledge and successes, and sharing the responsibility for exploring a range of learning practices.

Educators move beyond reflection by shifting practices, monitoring impact, and sustaining the critical work of talking openly with colleagues and students about learning challenges and potential strategies for improvement.

Educators embrace student assets through instruction.

A critical dimension of professional learning is recognizing the importance of building all educators’ knowledge, skills, practices, and dispositions to personalize teaching in a way that considers each student’s interests and needs.

Educators develop skills and practices to create contextualized and responsive instruction and to attend to all aspects of the classroom experience. Professional learning leaders therefore prioritize not only understanding what personalized and responsive teaching looks like but also providing opportunities for educators to explore and apply such teaching practices with support and feedback.

Professional learning increases educators’ capacity to recognize and embrace students’ assets in instruction and classroom environments. When educators shift to a strengths- or assets-based approach, they embrace practices that build on what students bring to the classroom in terms of experiences, talents, and interests rather than seeing differences as gaps or weaknesses.

Professional learning that increases educators’ capacity to personalize learning based on who students are and how they learn is tightly integrated with the academic aspects of teaching and learning including the curriculum and instructional materials in use in a classroom. Educators address their capacity to recognize and serve students with a range of abilities, often working in partnership with specialized staff to adapt all aspects of teaching to create learning that is rigorous and accessible.

As educators strengthen their capacity to address all aspects of their students’ academic and nonacademic development, understanding the importance of the whole child is critical. Educators learn about the intersection of students’ personal and life skills and academic success and leverage strategies to help students develop to their full potential.

Educators learn to create classrooms where students have safety, agency, and voice to talk openly about their experiences. What educators hear from their students helps them identify areas for further exploration. They learn how to recognize potential student misconceptions about content and how their own practices or patterns in classroom management encourage or discourage student understanding and learning as well as students’ opportunities to share their voices and advocate for themselves.

Educators foster relationships with students, families, and communities.

Educators recognize the importance of building their capacity to establish authentic and caring relationships with students, families, and community members. They study the importance of establishing trust and learn strategies to build and sustain two-way communication so students and families experience trusting relationships throughout the education system.

Educators listen to students to understand their interests and needs and establish students’ autonomy in influencing the learning and schooling they experience. Educators in positions of leadership at the school and system levels understand a range of strategies for establishing positive learning contexts that support the whole child. They also learn approaches related to classroom safety, disciplinary practices, and emotional regulation.

Educators strengthen capacity to interact with families and caretakers as well as community members so they can draw on essential sources of student information to create relevant learning experiences. Educators who work with families cultivate essential partnerships that position parents and caretakers to engage fully in their children’s education. To build and sustain relationships with all community members, educators increase their capacity to talk openly about difficult or controversial topics without using language or stances that are inflammatory or that would serve as barriers to productive collaboration.

Educators turn to local community members and students' families as experts, seeking their partnership and input. Educators recognize that the instructional materials they use are critical content for discussions and partnerships with families and communities (for example, business leaders) and therefore can act as catalysts for stronger relationships.

Educators work with families and caregivers to more deeply understand their students and to leverage that knowledge to enhance instruction. They are better positioned to allocate or advocate for resources to meet a student’s need for specific support, whether that comes in the form of technology tools, learning needs modifications, or health and wellness referrals.

Individual educators are not solely responsible for serving the multitude of student needs that are often identified in the classroom. However, any educator may serve as a primary liaison for a student and therefore must be able to tap appropriate colleagues and collaborate to address particular student needs.

Selected research

González, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (Eds.). (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Harvard Family Research Project (2006/2007). Family involvement makes a difference in elementary school children’s education. Author. dropoutprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Family_Involvement_Makes_a_Difference_20100914.pdf

Jones, S.M. & Kahn, J. (2017). The evidence base for how we learn. The Aspen Institute. aspeninstitute.org/publications/evidence-base-learn/

Mapp, K.L. & Bergman, E. (2021, June). Embracing a new normal. Carnegie Corporation of New York. carnegie.org/NewNormal

Fievre, M.J. (2021, September 1). Teaching strategies that support students’ individuality. Edutopia. edutopia.org/article/teaching-strategies-support-students-individuality