2.6 — Employing classroom routines, procedures, norms, and supports for positive behavior to ensure a climate in which all students can learn
This guide turns CSTP element Employing classroom routines, procedures, norms, and supports for positive behavior to ensure a climate in which all students can learn into observable practice: what teachers can plan and do, what students may experience, what evidence can support reflection, and where technology can add value without becoming the goal.
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.
What Effective Practice Looks Like
- Co-create, explicitly teach, model, rehearse, and revisit a small set of positively stated norms and routines.
- Design physical and digital spaces for accessibility, movement, collaboration, independent focus, and representation.
- Build predictable relationships and use culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and restorative practices without attempting clinical diagnosis.
- Maintain high expectations while supplying scaffolds, accommodations, language supports, and opportunities to recover from mistakes.
- Study participation, discipline, belonging, and opportunity-to-learn patterns for inequities and respond instructionally.
Focus Points for This Element
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 element.
- 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-generated norms and examples of routine instruction
- accessible room or virtual-space plans
- participation and belonging data disaggregated where appropriate
- records of proactive supports and restorative follow-through
- student work showing productive risk-taking and revision
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 | a learning-management system for predictable organization | Use version history, comments, exemplars, and clear roles; explicitly teach digital collaboration. |
| Elicit and assess | visual timers and accessible digital schedules | Keep checks low stakes when formative; inspect item quality and pair scores with student work and conversation. |
| Model and investigate | digital portfolios for reflection and celebration | Require prediction, observation, explanation, and transfer so the tool supports—not replaces—disciplinary thinking. |
| Access and communicate | district-approved communication and translation tools | Follow student plans, provide captions and accessible formats, and use human-reviewed interpretation or translation. |
| Manage and reflect | captioning, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and other assistive technology required by student plans | 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?
Original Examples and Resources, Cleaned for Migration
Teachers promote social development and responsibility within a caring community where each student is treated fairly and respectfully. They create physical or virtual learning environments that promote student learning, reflect diversity, and encourage constructive and productive interactions among students. They establish and maintain learning environments that are physically, intellectually, and emotionally safe. Teachers create a rigorous learning environment with high expectations and appropriate support for all students. Teachers develop, communicate, and maintain high standards for individual and group behavior. They employ classroom routines, procedures, norms, and supports for positive behavior to ensure a climate in which all students can learn. They use instructional time to optimize learning.
As teachers develop, they may ask, “How do I…” or “Why do I…”
Involve all students in the development of classroom procedures and routines
Guidance: Co-create classroom rules and expectations through discussion and consensus-building. Use visual anchors or contracts that reflect student voice.
Help students transition smoothly and efficiently from one instructional activity to the next
Guidance: Use visual and auditory cues, posted agendas, countdown timers, and consistent routines. Pre-teach transitions and use student leaders to model expected behavior.
Apply knowledge of students’ development to provide time and support for learning activities
Guidance: Plan buffer time between tasks. Provide step-by-step scaffolding, chunking of tasks, and extended time when needed to accommodate developmental differences.
Develop daily schedules, timelines, routines, and norms that maximize learning
Guidance: Create predictable, visual schedules and time blocks that reflect students’ peak focus times. Use norm-setting activities at the start of the year to establish shared expectations.
Connect district, site, and classroom procedures to promote fairness and respect
Guidance: Align your classroom expectations with school-wide PBIS systems. Reinforce behavior expectations in hallway, cafeteria, and online learning spaces.
Adapt routines, procedures, and norms to ensure the success of students with special needs
Guidance: Provide visual schedules, sensory tools, checklists, and explicit modeling. Collaborate with special education staff to tailor supports and access points.
Authoritative Starting Points
- California Commission on Teacher Credentialing: California Standards for the Teaching Profession
- California Department of Education: Content Standards
- California Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources
- CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
- U.S. Department of Education: Student Privacy Policy Office