Open Learning Objectives is an open source "unpacking" of K-12 Math and Language Arts standards, such as the Common Core State Standards and other state standards. Specifically it proposes a discrete set of detailed learning goals which broader standards such as CCSS can be decomposed into. The specificity fosters creation of and search for more specific educational content. It also fosters more granular mastery determination.

1. Every year educators across the country spend many hours creating learning objectives and breaking them down to varying levels of detail. This work is entirely redundant, and takes up precious time from teachers and other educators that could be used in higher-value activities to support student learning.

2. Learning objectives from most sources (including the Common Core) are not structured to enable competency-based learning. They are not sufficiently specific, discrete, or demonstrable to make this kind of work effective. The objectives need to be modified in order to fully leverage their potential and help students achieve the benefits of moving forward at their own pace as they master content rather than based on calendar-based systems.

3. Educators and content creators do not have a common structure of learning objectives to use to efficiently match student learning needs with solutions created by the marketplace. While there is exciting potential for a thriving market for these solutions, the lack of a clear structure of learning objectives cripples and confuses the interaction.

Teachers ask for solutions to learning needs using learning objectives that vary widely, and content creators offer products that address objectives that are defined in many different ways. This makes it very difficult for teachers to navigate the complex and growing marketplace to find exactly what they need. And it is very challenging for content creators to define and design targeted at specific needs.

The Learning Accelerator and OpenEd have partnered to create a list of specific learning objectives for K-5 mathematics. These objectives are structured to enable competency-based learning. They also cover all of the content in the Common Core standards for math for these grades.

Our goal is to make these available for free for every teacher in the country. We hope this will be helpful for teachers and serve as a starting point for them to implement competency-based learning in the months and years ahead. And even if teachers don't move in this direction, we hope this list can save teachers many hours of work creating the objectives.

The objectives are in the Excel spreadsheets and XML files in this repository. They are grouped by topic area (e.g., addition, fractions, etc.). You can click on the little "+" signs on the left to open and close the sections. For most of the objectives we have added a reference to the Common Core standard the objective aligns with, you can see this on the right

Check out the XLS spreadsheet and load it in your Excel compatible spreadsheet app.
git checkout MathLearningObjectives.xls or GeometryMO.xls

Currently checkins are approved by Brandon Dorman and Scott Ellis. We welcome contributions from the wider education community.

To give feedback post comments here. Or fork this repository, check out MathLearningObjectives.xml and load into Excel. Make your changes. Save As MathLearningObjectives.xml. Then issue a pull request to us. By using the XML version GitHub (well really git) will be able to merge your proposed changes with the master copy. That is multiple contributors can make changes to different parts of the spreadsheet.

We will be expanding this effort to cover Middle School and High School Math and K-12 English Language Arts. We will also be providing an open source API to allow querying the structure of these objectives. Keep an eye on the page for details.

• Why are you using GitHub for this? Why not just post it on a web page? While GitHub is primarily used by developers, this allows an easy way for many contributors to collaborate on this project, making it truly open.
• How is this different from the Common Core State Standards? As mentioned CCSS is in many areas too vague even at the standard leaf node to be useful. OLO breaks apart CCSS into more discrete learning goals for more targeted assessment and more precise resource search.
• Why are you really doing this? TLA wants to create clearer learning objectives to enable mastery-based learning. CCSS isn't quite specific enough (see above). OpenEd's specialty is standard-aligned resources. In some areas CCSS is not concrete enough to provide well aligned resources.