District Objective Library Import (System Admins)

Learning Objectives in Schoology

When District Mastery has been enabled for an organization, an additional tab will be available in the Import area called District Objectives. To navigate to this area:

1. Click Tools.
2. Select School Management in the drop-down menu.
3. Click Import in the navigation menu.
4. Click the District Objectives tab.

This is where you will import your learning objectives file and create your library.

District Objective Library

Your District Objective Library is where you will store all of your district's learning and parent objectives. Your district will share one library that will contain all of your objectives and settings. Any building using objectives from that library will also have the district setting applied to their Standards-Based Gradebook.

District Mastery allows for uneven standards hierarchies. This means that learning objectives in the same library do not need to have the same depth, and you can have a different number of standard levels as a part of your hierarchical structure.

• After you have imported your first learning objective file, a banner will be on your import tab letting you know the depth of your library.

For example, take the following ELA Common Core Standard:

Common Core English Language Arts

Reading: Literature

Grade 4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1 is the learning objective. It has a depth of 4, with 3 parent objectives above it in the hierarchy (Grade 4; Reading: Literature; English Language Arts). If a district imports this structure, you may also import structures with more than, or less than, a depth of 4. This gives districts the freedom to fully customize their library. For example:

Common Core Math

High School: Functions

Trigonometric Functions

Grades 11-12

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSF.TF.A.1

However many levels a district includes in their district objectives import; the learning objective hierarchy is customizable up to 20 levels.

Many learning objectives can be grouped within a parent objective:

Common Core English Language Arts

Reading: Literature

Grade 4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.2

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.5

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.6

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.7

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.8

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.9

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.10

Many parent objectives can live under a single higher-level parent objective:

Common Core English Language Arts

Reading: Literature

Kindergarten

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.3

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.5

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.6

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.7

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.8

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.9

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.10

Grade 1

Learning Objectives

Grade 2

Learning Objectives

Grade 3

Learning Objectives

Grade 4

Learning Objectives

Grade 5

Learning Objectives

Grade 6

Learning Objectives

Grade 7

Learning Objectives

Grade 8

Learning Objectives

Grade 9-10

Learning Objectives

Grade 11-12

Learning Objectives

Information Included in Learning Objectives Library

There are six attributes of objectives in District Mastery.

Field	Description
external_id	An identifying string or number that is unique across your entire organization. This field can be used for the CASE GUID if you are pulling from a CASE repository, an internal identification system, or from the standards organization itself. It can be the same as the title but does not have to be. This field is required.
title	This is the title of your learning objective or parent objective. It can be a short set of words (ex. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity) or can come from outside of your organization and be used to track the standard back to the originating source, such as Common Core or NextGen. (ex. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.10). Learning objective titles need to be unique across the organization. Parent objective does not need to be unique. Titles have a 255 character limit.
display_title	The display name for the learning objective will display in teachers' gradebooks and student-facing reports. If left blank, the value entered in the title field will display by default. Display names have a 255-character limit.
description	Additional details about the learning objective that will display in teachers' gradebooks and student-facing reports.
type	The value of objective indicates that this item is a learning objective that can be aligned to materials. The value of parent indicates that this item is intended for organization and reporting; it will contain learning objectives or other parents in your learning objective hierarchy. You must use the exact terms objective or parent in your import file. This field is case sensitive and importing any other value will result in an error.
parent_id	This field is used to identify the learning objective group for a given learning objective or parent objective. All parent_id inputs must reference a parent objective in the file or already present in your organization. If no value is given, this item will become a new root at the top of your learning objective hierarchy.

Build the District Objectives Import File

When building your import file, the best practice is to start with determining which objectives and standards you want to import into your district. Once you have those confirmed, you can determine next how many parent levels you need across all subjects.

Reviewing English Language Arts Common Core State Standards as an example, you may decide to include the following objectives in your district objective library:

Reading: Literature

Grade 1

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3
Key Ideas and Details #3
Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.10
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
With prompting and support, read prose and poetry of appropriate complexity for grade 1.

Grade 5

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.2
Key Ideas and Details #2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.4
Craft and Structure #1
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

Reading: Foundational Skills

Grade 2

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.4.A
Fluency #1
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.4.C
Fluency #3
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.

Grade 5

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3.A
Phonics and Word Recognition
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.4.A
Fluency #1
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.

Looking at the standards, they fall under a 4-level hierarchy:

English Language Arts Common Core State Standards

Reading: Literature

Grade 1

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.10

Grade 5

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.2
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.4

and

English Language Arts Common Core State Standards

Reading: Foundational Skills

Grade 2

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.4.A
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.4.C

Grade 5

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3.A
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.4.A

To build these into your file, you should list the parent objective levels first and work your way down level by level.

The file is listed in the following order:

1. Level 1 parent objective (English Language Arts)
2. Level 2 parent objectives (Reading: Literature and Reading: Foundational Skills)
3. Level 3 parent objectives (Reading: Literature Grade 1, Grade 5 and Reading: Foundational Skills Grade 2, Grade 5)
4. Level 4 Objectives

Once the file is imported, it will appear in your District Objective Library.

Import a File

Step 1 - Select the file

Once your file has been created, attach the file you would like to import and click Continue.

Step 2 - Match columns

Next, you will be asked to map the fields in Schoology to the fields in your file. As you select a field from the drop-down menus, examples of data in that column will appear on the right side for you to confirm.

Once you have mapped all the required fields and any optional fields you've included, click Next.

Step 3 - Resolve Errors

If there are any errors or issues that need to be resolved in the file, they will appear in this step. Otherwise, you will be directed to Step 4.

A few examples of errors that may appear include:

Inconsistent number of parents or learning objectives without a parent

• If any learning objectives in your file contain too many or too few parents, you will be provided with a list.

Missing information in a required field

• If the external id, title, or type or left blank, you will be provided with a list of objectives that need to be updated.

Broken hierarchies

This could happen in a variety of ways. A few examples are:

• If an objective references itself as its parent.
• If a parent or learning objective references a learning objective as its parent
• If an objective references a parent that doesn't exist

Should this occur, you will be provided with an error that provides you with the row and ID of the invalid reference.

Too many characters or invalid characters

The limitations of each field are defined in the specification. If an import breaks one or more of these rules, the user will be notified during this step.

Step 4 - Confirm

Once any errors in the file have been resolved, the file can be imported by selecting Confirm.

Depending on the size of the file, this could take a few minutes. Leave this tab open while the import processes. Once the import is complete, a success message appears.

Update Objectives with Imports

Once you have imported your first learning objective file, you will see a yellow banner on your import tab letting you know the depth of your library. All subsequent import files must have the same depth.

Also after the first import, you will have an additional option regarding updating your objectives. You can choose between:

• Don't update existing records: This will leave any objectives previously created in their existing state, regardless of what is included in the new file.
• Update existing records using external_id: This will map existing objectives in your library to objectives in the file based on the external_id. Any other attributes of the learning objective (other than external_id) will be overridden by the information contained in the file.