Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources: Danielson Component 1d
Demonstrating knowledge of resources is Component 1d of the Danielson Framework, inside Domain 1. It asks what you know about materials for your classroom, for your own professional growth, and for your students. The framework's standard scale runs Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished, though districts adapt it, so check your local rubric.
No publisher hands you a finished curriculum. That assumption sits underneath Component 1d, and it's the reason the component exists at all.
In 2015, the nonprofit EdReports ran its first round of textbook reviews, looking at more than 80 of the best-selling elementary and middle school math programs. Eleven met expectations for Common Core alignment. Nine of those eleven came from a single series, Eureka Math. Pearson had none that cleared the bar. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had more than 30 texts reviewed and none that fully met the standard. The Daily Beast covered the fallout at the time. Those reviews were math-only, and they're a decade old now, but the underlying problem hasn't moved: what a district buys and what your students need are two different things, and closing that gap is your job.
That gap is what an evaluator is looking at when they rate your knowledge of resources. Here are the ten questions I work through before an observation, grouped under the three things this component actually measures.
What Component 1d Actually Asks For
Component 1d sits in Domain 1, Planning and Preparation, alongside knowledge of content and pedagogy (1a), knowledge of students (1b), instructional outcomes (1c), coherent instruction (1e), and student assessments (1f). It breaks into three parts. Most teachers who lose ground on this component are strong in one part and thin in the other two, which is easy to miss when you're preparing on your own.
| Element | What it covers | Evidence you could show |
|---|---|---|
| Resources for classroom use | Materials students work with directly, and whether they line up with your learning outcomes | Assignment sheets listing resources, texts at a range of reading levels, guest speaker invitations, field trip documentation tied to standards |
| Resources to extend your own knowledge | Materials that build your content knowledge and your practice | Professional reading you can name, coursework transcripts, membership in a professional organization, notes from work with an instructional coach |
| Resources for students | Support that reaches past your classroom, academic and otherwise | Recommended websites and outside reading, tutoring referrals, library and community connections, counselor referrals |
The framework's four standard performance levels are Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished. "Exemplary" is not among them. The word circulates in staff rooms and in secondhand summaries of the framework, and it can muddle a conversation with an evaluator working from the standard labels. States and districts do adapt the framework, though, and some rename their rating levels or fold it into a locally built instrument, so check the one your district actually adopted before assuming which words appear on your form.
Here is a rough sense of the progression, offered as general examples rather than as scoring criteria: at the low end, a teacher is largely unaware of what's available, in the middle a teacher knows what the school and district provide, and higher up a teacher is also drawing on sources outside the district and putting them to work for particular students. The actual rubric weighs several elements together, including how well resources match your learning outcomes and how they get used, rather than scoring one behavior. Score yourself against your locally adopted rubric, not against a summary of it.
Resources for the Classroom
This is the element most teachers are strongest in, because it's the one the district hands you a starting point for. The first four questions cover what you use with students and why.
1. How well do you know the resources your district provides?
Most public schools have required resources. They're usually purchased from a publisher after a review team has checked them against the state's content standards. For a master teacher, those materials are a place to start, not a script.
Knowing your district curriculum means knowing its strengths, its weaknesses, and what's flatly missing. You know how your students respond to it, and that knowledge sharpens with years in the room. You know which units need supplementing to reach the proficiency level a standard actually demands. Some material is weak enough that you supplant it, finding curriculum that covers the required content properly, which is done with administrative approval and support. Another reason to add or alter is to reteach a concept a different way. If students can't solve for a missing variable because the textbook's approach is thin, you go find one with better strategies.
Strong teachers understand how a curriculum builds on itself. They know it well enough to plant a seed early that pays off two units later. They know where students are going to struggle and where they can move faster.
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2. What other resources do you use to meet your students' needs?
You know the strengths and weaknesses of the district curriculum. You also know your students' strengths and weaknesses. Those two maps rarely line up, and the gap between them is why you supplement.
Surveys are a common way to learn something about how students prefer to work, and plenty of teachers use inventories built on Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. One caution worth saying out loud: the research behind matching instruction to a student's preferred learning style is weak, and evaluators trained on current practice may push back if you present it as an instructional-design principle. Use these inventories to learn about your students' interests and confidence, not as a reason to build four versions of the same lesson.
A student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) may require accommodations, modifications, assistive technology, or specialized materials to provide appropriate access to instruction. A student who communicates differently from peers may need assistive technology, and the teacher and support specialists work out how the content gets accessed, sometimes through a tablet connected to a switch. The work is finding a route to the same content other students are reaching.
High achievers need attention here too. Making material more complex is an appropriate modification. Grade or subject acceleration might be another. What doesn't work is assigning more of the same problems. The work has to be harder in kind, not longer, and pitched at the student's actual readiness level.
3. Do your resources meet state and district requirements?
Keep one question running in the back of your mind while you research and experiment: will this help students meet state and district requirements? Plenty of resources are excellent and still fail that test. If a resource doesn't serve a specific learning outcome, its place in your week deserves scrutiny. Some districts allow a percentage of instructional time for culture and team building. Others don't let teachers depart from the required curriculum at all.
You get roughly 180 days with each student. Making sure each one gains a year's growth in a year's time is the whole job, and it means sometimes slowing down in order to move faster later. It also means favoring resources that cover several areas of required content at once.
When you bring in something new, know what comes out. Teachers add without subtracting all the time, and the calendar for covering required standards gets impossible. Newer teachers especially need to be careful that a resource they've fallen for actually meets student, school, and district requirements. You can be questioned for not teaching the adopted curriculum. Being able to explain the swap, in terms of the students in front of you, is what protects the decision.
4. Are the materials challenging and appropriate?
Materials have to be challenging at a student's readiness level and appropriate for their age and where they are socially and emotionally. Differentiating well is a permanent project, not a task you finish.
Teachers with years behind them carry a deep bench of resources. You remember students with similar needs and reach for what worked. You also keep looking for something better than what worked, because the students in front of you now have their own mix of strengths and gaps, and no two years produce the same group. That's the part that keeps this from becoming a filing exercise.
Resources That Extend Your Own Knowledge
This is the element most often left thin, because it's the one nobody hands you. Two questions cover it.
5. What do you need for your own professional development?
Master teachers know their own weak spots. Some are more math-minded than literacy-focused. They have no trouble teaching computation and struggle to teach comprehension strategies. Naming that honestly is the first move, and then you go looking for what closes it.
Professional reading, conversations with colleagues, an exchange with a researcher online, video, work with an instructional coach, time with an administrator: educational ideas arrive in a lot of forms. Teachers who grow have a growth mindset and aren't afraid of being humbled, because they take themselves for lifelong learners. They avoid the posture of the person who already knows. Here is a good piece from the Huffington Post on the difference between being a knower and a learner.
Proficient practice in this component generally involves knowing the resources available through your school and district and using them well. Higher ratings tend to also reflect range: looking beyond the building, into professional organizations, universities, and outside networks, and coming back with something your district didn't hand you. Range is one factor among several, and your locally adopted rubric is what governs.
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6. What does the latest research say in your subject areas?
Keeping up with research in the subjects you teach sounds daunting until it becomes habit. You start to see the pendulum swing, and you can explain how a current idea differs from the version that came through a generation ago. Teachers say "we did this in the 90s and it didn't work" all the time. Being able to answer that with specifics, and to concede the point when it's fair, is what the reading buys you.
Elementary science is a good example of how much a field can shift. Inquiry-based instruction has become one widely used approach, often organized around the 5E structure: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, evaluate. In a 5E lesson, students explore first and generate their own questions about the materials you've set out. Direct and explicit instruction remain widely used as well, including formats descended from the Madeline Hunter lesson plan and its "I do, we do, you do" sequence, and plenty of teachers move between the two depending on the content and the group. The 5E structure travels into other subjects, and it's worth trying there.
None of this works without a tolerance for things not working. Alternative lesson formats, new findings about how learning happens, unfamiliar devices: some of it will fail in front of thirty people. Troubleshooting in public and reflecting honestly afterward is how the useful part gets separated from the noise.
Resources for Students Beyond the Classroom
The third element covers what students can reach when they aren't with you, academically and otherwise. Four questions here.
7. Do you use a mix of digital and print media?
A 2013 Education Week piece, "Big Three" Publishers Rethink K-12 Strategies, reported that Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt were all pivoting from print toward adaptive digital curricula with embedded assessment, interactivity, and collaboration tools built in. That prediction landed. Subscription pricing, device-agnostic delivery, and content sliced into small modular units are now ordinary. What the piece got right and is still worth holding onto is the observation from one district technology director: districts increasingly assemble materials from several sources rather than buying one book per subject per grade.
So the practical skill is curation. Find resources that connect to how students already learn things outside school, whether that's a game, a video, or a forum. Virtual and immersive tools have started to earn a place, letting a student walk through a rainforest or watch a procedure they'd never otherwise see. The teachers doing this well are the ones who can hold district-provided media and outside digital material in the same lesson without the seams showing.
8. Are the materials engaging and interactive?
Engagement has two halves: input and output. Teachers build the first half by choosing resources that pull in as many senses as possible. The second half is how you set up students' encounter with those materials, and you can pair the best manipulatives in the building with a weak plan and get nothing.
Students need learning structures and a reason to participate actively before they'll dig into content. Kagan structures are one well-known set. Chris Biffle's Whole Brain Teaching is another approach built around active participation.
Output is the half that gets measured. Whether a student summarizes, performs a skill, or completes a task, the interaction between student and content belongs to both of you. Agency is the thing you're building. How engaged a student is with the material tracks closely with how interactive you've made the encounter.
9. What else supports students in accessing the content?
A teacher's toolbox keeps expanding. You collect materials, try new resources, and learn strategies for connecting kids to content. The harder skill isn't learning the newest tool, it's judging whether a tool is worth the time. "It's best for kids" is the test that survives contact with a sales pitch.
Technology has moved into classrooms unevenly. Some communities fund a device for every student. Others are working toward one computer with reliable internet in the building. Putting a device in a room doesn't make students proficient on a standard. What helps is knowing what your students already use outside school well enough to mirror some of it back.
That reach outside your own district is one of the things Component 1d is looking at. Knowing what's on the shelf is the baseline. Going looking, and using what you find with particular students in mind, is what tends to support a higher rating, though it isn't the only element the rubric weighs. Sharing what you find with colleagues matters too, but that belongs to Domain 4, professional responsibilities, not this one.
10. Do you look outside district materials for social and emotional support?
District budgets vary enormously. Some teachers have a wide range of materials. Many watch budgets shrink and end up buying supplies themselves. I can't think of another public service profession where most employees spend their own money on materials. Teachers are a giving bunch, and most of them either purchase or spend hours hunting for resources because it's what's best for kids. Call it the Teacher-Pay-Teacher era. People are finding materials free or cheaper than what publishers charge. See free teacher lesson plans.
The resources that matter most are the ones matched to the students in front of you. If bullying behaviors are surfacing, finding materials that address it is a prerequisite for anyone learning anything, because the room has to be safe first. Teacher.org's Educator's Guide to Combat Bullying and Bullying Prevention is one place to start.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows federal funds to support schoolwide positive behavioral interventions, and many districts have built out social and emotional programs on that basis. Counselors and teachers are both asked to teach these concepts. Time spent on the social and emotional side isn't time taken from academics. It correlates directly with what students can achieve.
What Evidence Actually Looks Like
Here's where a lot of otherwise strong teachers lose points. You do all of this, and then you walk into the conference with nothing to show for it. Evaluators are working from what you can put in front of them, so the question isn't only what you know. It's what you can document.
What counts as evidence varies by state, district, and evaluation system, and many districts publish their own artifact guidance. The items here are examples of the kinds of evidence districts have asked for, not a checklist. Check your local rubric and your district's guidance for what yours will actually credit.
- An assignment sheet or unit plan with its resource list attached, showing what students actually worked from
- Texts at several reading levels for the same content, which demonstrates you thought about access
- Invitations, correspondence, or notes from a guest speaker
- Field trip documentation that ties the trip to specific learning targets and standards
- Records of online resource use, including whatever platforms your district licenses
- A list of professional reading you keep up with, by title, not by category
- Evidence of membership or participation in a professional organization or a professional learning network
- Notes, calendars, or emails documenting your work with instructional coaches and specialists
- Documentation of a curriculum adoption committee or a training you completed
- Materials you recommend to students for use outside class, including tutoring options and websites
- A record of how your classroom budget was spent, showing money went to instructional materials
Two habits make this painless. Keep a running log as the year happens rather than reconstructing one in April. And when you bring in something from outside the district, write one line about why, because that sentence is the actual evidence of judgment, and it's the thing an evaluator can't infer from the resource itself.
(Charlotte Danielson Model: Domain 1, Component 1d)
MORE ROCK MY EVALUATION RELATED READINGS:
- Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
- Demonstrating Knowledge of Your Students
- Setting Instructional Outcomes
- Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources (Currently here)
- Designing Coherent Instruction
- Designing Student Assessments
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Component 1d in the Danielson Framework?
Component 1d is Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources, one of six components in Domain 1, Planning and Preparation. It covers three things: resources for classroom use, resources that extend your own content knowledge and professional skill, and resources available to students beyond your classroom. Evaluators rate it on the same four-level scale used across the framework.
What tends to separate proficient from distinguished on this component?
Range is a large part of it. Proficient practice generally means you know the resources your school and district provide and you use them well. Higher ratings tend to also reflect knowledge that extends past the district into the community, professional organizations, universities, and online sources, along with pursuing options that stretch what a particular student can reach. It isn't about volume. The rubric weighs several elements together rather than scoring one behavior, though, and districts adapt the language, so the instrument your district adopted is what decides.
Is there an "exemplary" rating in the Danielson Framework?
Not among the framework's four standard levels, which are Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished. Those labels have been in place since the framework's first edition. "Exemplary" gets used informally in a lot of schools and in secondhand summaries, and it is not one of the standard four. States and districts do adapt the framework, and some rename their rating levels or build their own instrument around it, so what appears on your form is determined by the version your district adopted. Check that document rather than a general description of the framework.
What evidence should I bring to an observation conference for 1d?
Bring documentation rather than description. Resource lists attached to unit plans, texts at varied reading levels, guest speaker correspondence, field trip paperwork tied to standards, your professional reading list, records of coaching sessions, and materials you've pointed students toward for use outside class. Check whether your district publishes its own artifact list, since that's the one your evaluator is working from.
Does mentoring other teachers count toward this component?
Not toward 1d. Sharing resources and expertise with colleagues is real work, and it's recognized in the framework, but it lives in Domain 4, Professional Responsibilities. Component 1d is about what you know and seek out. Keeping the two separate helps in a conference, because it lets you claim credit in the right place instead of arguing for it in the wrong one.
- Three elements, not one - Component 1d covers resources for classroom use, resources for your own professional growth, and resources for students beyond your room. Thin coverage in any one of them shows up in the rating.
- "Exemplary" is not one of the four standard levels - The framework's labels are Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, and Distinguished. Districts sometimes rename their levels, so confirm against your locally adopted instrument.
- Range matters, but it isn't the whole score - Looking past the district into the community, professional organizations, universities, and online sources tends to support a higher rating. The rubric weighs several elements together, so score yourself against your local instrument.
- Mentoring belongs to Domain 4 - Sharing what you find with colleagues counts under Professional Responsibilities, not under this component.
- Document as you go - Resource lists, guest speaker correspondence, field trip paperwork tied to standards, and your professional reading list are the artifacts evaluators can actually credit.
Building depth in curriculum and instruction is one of the clearest ways to strengthen this part of your evaluation, and it's the kind of study that fits around a teaching schedule. The sponsored programs on this page include online and hybrid master's and specialist options in curriculum, instructional design, and educational leadership, several of them built for teachers already holding a license. Licensure and endorsement requirements vary by state, so if a program is meant to lead to an added credential or an administrator role, confirm it meets the requirements where you plan to work.
As a 5th grade teacher, in 2010 Jon won the Presidential Award for Elementary Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST). As a principal, his school won the 2012 Blue Ribbon Award. In 2018, he won the National Distinguished Principal Award (NDP). In 2019 he won the National No Kid Hungry Breakfast Hero Award.
Jon is the author of three guides published on teacher.org: An Educator's Guide to Combat Bullying & Bully Prevention; Teacher Evaluation: A Transition Guide to Exemplary Performance; and You are the Wild Card: Infusing Fun Back into Curriculum. He has authored a children's picture book that was released January 2019 titled Benjamin’s Visit to Principal Reads Office…again! (available at www.archwaypublishing.com)
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