Learning Environment
A productive environment is built through daily interactions that combine intellectual challenge with dignity, trust, and a real sense of belonging.
The official Element
Element 2A: Teachers guide learning through mutually respectful, supportive, and challenging experiences that result in each student’s academic and social–emotional growth.
What this Element asks of an educator
A productive environment is built through daily interactions that combine intellectual challenge with dignity, trust, and a real sense of belonging.
Read together, these indicators ask educators to make learning environment 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.
Support students in embracing diversity by engaging in and…
Official indicator: Support students in embracing diversity by engaging in and facilitating positive interactions in an inclusive and equitable climate with respect to cultural, linguistic, social, religious, and economic backgrounds; learning differences; gender and gender identity; sexual orientation; and family structure.
Leverage the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds
Official indicator: Leverage the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, goals, interests, and abilities of each student to build trusting relationships that ensure that each student learns and thrives.
Engage with students in appreciating their own identities and…
Official indicator: Engage with students in appreciating their own identities and the identities of others and viewing themselves as valued contributors to the community.
Encourage constructive interactions among students by modeling
Official indicator: Encourage constructive interactions among students by modeling, teaching, and practicing skills such as effective communication, emotional self-regulation, conflict resolution, and problem-solving.
Nurture students’ leadership capacities by facilitating opportunities for students…
Official indicator: Nurture students’ leadership capacities by facilitating opportunities for students to apply those capacities in purposeful and meaningful ways.
Developing the practice
Teach the environment
Model, practice, and revisit relationships, routines, expectations, and ways of resolving difficulty.
Design for access and dignity
Arrange time, space, materials, supports, and responses so students can participate without unnecessary friction.
Listen to the climate
Use observation and student perspective to examine safety, belonging, challenge, voice, and the effects of adult decisions.
Evidence worth noticing
- student descriptions of safety, belonging, intellectual challenge, and voice
- interaction, behavior, participation, and transition patterns across settings
- a routine or environmental feature revised in response to evidence
- documentation of restorative follow-through or coordinated support
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.
Sixth-grade resources
Ground community-building in the real developmental and academic work of sixth grade.
Questions for reflection and coaching
- Where is learning environment 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?
Continuum of Teaching Practice: Element 2A
This Element-specific continuum describes how practice develops from Emerging through Innovating. Compare the teacher-practice descriptions with the related evidence in students’ experience, then identify a current strength and a purposeful next step.
How to understand and use this continuum for professional growth
- Begin at Emerging and read across. Practices described at earlier levels carry forward even when they are not repeated.
- Use evidence gathered over time to identify the description that most closely reflects current practice.
- A teacher may be at different levels in different Elements, regardless of years in the profession.
- Changes in students, content, grade level, school, or responsibilities may appropriately shift practice in either direction.
- Use the continuum for reflection and goal setting, not as a stand-alone observation or evaluation instrument.
Select a level to expand it. Select it again to return to the full comparison.
Teacher practice
The teacher recognizes their role in creating an inclusive learning environment and implements basic safety and respect norms.
Evidence in student experience
Students have awareness of safety procedures and understand the rationale for maintaining safety in school and the learning environment.
Teacher practice
The teacher takes ownership in building a safe, equitable, and mutually respectful learning environment.
The teacher models, teaches, and practices skills to support the development of positive student interactions.
Evidence in student experience
Students consistently follow established norms and procedures.
Students engage in positive interactions with their peers.
Teacher practice
The teacher anticipates and reduces risks to physical, intellectual, and emotional safety.
The teacher creates and facilitates opportunities for constructive interactions with and among students in an inclusive learning environment.
Evidence in student experience
Students support peers, take risks, and respectfully share alternative perspectives that result in each student’s academic and social-emotional growth.
Teacher practice
The teacher nurtures students’ capacities by co-creating a physically, intellectually, and emotionally safe learning environment.
The teacher fosters the intellectual and emotional safety of all students by monitoring their language and behavior.
Evidence in student experience
Students actively contribute to an inclusive classroom culture, demonstrate understanding and value of diverse identities, and display perseverance and resilience while regularly aligning their actions to promote the intellectual and emotional safety of others.
Teacher practice
The teacher shares responsibility with the students for maintaining a mutually respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environment that results in each student’s academic and social–emotional growth.
Evidence in student experience
Students take ownership of their learning environment, leading inclusivity efforts and respecting diversity.
Students share responsibility for intellectual and emotional safety for themselves and others in the learning environment.
Source and attribution: Continuum language reproduced from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Continuum of Teaching Practice (2025), aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (2024). This publication by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing is not copyright. It may be reproduced in the public interest, but proper attribution is requested.