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Schema last updated May 27, 2026.

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About

Learning Components are granular, precise representations of individual skills or concepts that break down broad educational standards into teachable and measurable parts. While state standards often define learning goals at a high level, sometimes encompassing multiple ideas across weeks of instruction, Learning Components operate at the level where instruction happens: during a lesson, an activity, or a single question.

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Key characteristics

Each Learning Component is:
  • Instructionally actionable: Designed to guide daily teaching decisions and interventions.
  • Aligned to academic standards: Connected via semantic relationships, such as supports, to CASE-aligned standards.
  • Interoperable: Usable across diverse curricula, assessments, and platforms.
  • Machine-readable and human-interpretable: Tagged with unique identifiers and structured to support AI-driven content recommendations with transparent intent.
By serving as a shared, fine-grained metadata layer, Learning Components enable smarter edtech systems, more coherent instructional planning, and improved data quality across fragmented standards ecosystems. They also underpin learning progressions that model how student understanding develops over time.
Some standards do not have Learning Component alignments.For Mathematics: Categories like Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs), Pre-K, advanced math such as calculus, financial literacy in Texas, and certain state-specific groupings are intentionally excluded from Learning Component generation.For English Language Arts: College and Career Readiness Anchor standards along with non-leaf-node standards are not aligned to Learning Components. In addition, current Learning Components coverage is limited to standards from grades K–2. Additional grade bands will be added in future releases.

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Subjects to standards frameworks

Learning Components are mapped to the following standards frameworks:
SubjectStandards frameworks
MathematicsCommon Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
English Language ArtsCommon Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS ELA), Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, Vermont, Washington, Washington, D.C., and Wyoming.
We will be adding alignments to more state-specific frameworks in both Mathematics and English Language Arts in upcoming releases.

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Data relationship diagram

Data model diagram: LearningComponent entities connected to StandardsFrameworkItem by the supports relationship
The diagram shows the Learning Components dataset only. StandardsFrameworkItem is the connection target; its model is in Academic Standards. Learning Progressions (buildsTowards, relatesTo) between standards are in Learning Progressions.Example: A Learning Component is a granular skill or concept—e.g. Use place value to add two two-digit numbers. A standard is a StandardsFrameworkItem such as 2.NBT.B.5 (Fluently add and subtract within 100). The supports edge means the Learning Component is one of the deconstructed skills that underpin that standard; many Learning Components can support one standard, and one Learning Component might support multiple standards. The diagram shows only this one relationship type; it does not show how standards connect to each other (see Learning Progressions).ELA example: A LearningComponent such as Identify the front cover of a book supports the CCSS ELA standard RF.K.1.A — Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.Edge list (source → relationship → target):
  • LearningComponent → supports → StandardsFrameworkItem (e.g. “Use place value to add two two-digit numbers” → 2.NBT.B.5)
  • LearningComponent → supports → StandardsFrameworkItem (e.g. “Identify the front cover of a book” → RF.K.1.A)
See Entities and Relationships for full property and edge definitions.

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Entities

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LearningComponent

A LearningComponent represents a single, well-defined skill or concept that students are expected to learn. It is a granular unit of learning used to describe instructional intent at the level of a Lesson, Activity, or Assessment. Learning Components are aligned to academic standards, support interoperability across curricula, and serve as the foundational building blocks for organizing content, tracking progress, and enabling personalized instruction.
PropertyDescriptionTypeCardinality
academicSubjectAcademic subjectAcademicSubjectENUM1
attributionStatementTextual credit that acknowledges the source or creator of a work, included when required by the content’s license (e.g., Creative Commons BY); the statement specifies how the creator should be attributed in accordance with the license terms.String1
authorAuthor of this contentString1
dateCreatedDate on which the element was createdDate0..1
dateModifiedDate on which the element was most recently modifiedDate0..1
descriptionDescription of the itemString1
examplesSet of illustrative classroom scenarios showing how the skill is demonstrated; present on some Learning Components and not othersArray0..n
identifierIdentifier of the item, either as textual strings or as URL (URI) linksString1
inLanguageLanguage of the contentLanguageENUM1
licenseLicense document that applies to this content, typically indicated by URLString1
providerService provider, service operator, or service performerString1
{
  "type": "node",
  "identifier": "0013fbee-3e76-500f-9978-42aa1a65f105",
  "labels": ["LearningComponent"],
  "properties": {
    "dateCreated": "2025-04-01",
    "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "attributionStatement": "Knowledge Graph is provided by Learning Commons under the CC BY-4.0 license. Learning Commons received Learning Components under CC BY-4.0 from Achievement Network.",
    "dateModified": "2025-04-01",
    "description": "Use conversions to solve multi-step real-world problems",
    "identifier": "0013fbee-3e76-500f-9978-42aa1a65f105",
    "provider": "Learning Commons",
    "inLanguage": "en-US",
    "author": "Achievement Network",
    "academicSubject": "Mathematics"
  }
}

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Relationships

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supports

A supports relationship connects a LearningComponent to one or more StandardsFrameworkItem, indicating that the component contributes to the understanding or mastery of the associated standards, competencies, or other formal learning expectations. Each LearningComponent represents a discrete skill that helps a learner achieve the broader goals defined in the StandardsFrameworkItem. (:LearningComponent)-[:supports]->(:StandardsFrameworkItem) 
{
  "type": "relationship",
  "identifier": "5befaad7-ec1d-5229-a71e-a97c6690f578",
  "label": "supports",
  "properties": {
    "dateCreated": "2025-10-21",
    "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "targetEntity": "StandardsFrameworkItem",
    "attributionStatement": "Knowledge Graph is provided by Learning Commons under the CC BY-4.0 license. ELA Learning Components are provided by Learning Commons under CC BY-4.0. Learning Commons received state standards and written permission under CC BY-4.0 from 1EdTech.",
    "description": "A supports relationship links one entity to another, indicating that the first contributes to the understanding, mastery, or achievement of the goals defined by the second",
    "dateModified": "2025-10-21",
    "identifier": "5befaad7-ec1d-5229-a71e-a97c6690f578",
    "sourceEntity": "LearningComponent",
    "provider": "Learning Commons",
    "sourceEntityKey": "identifier",
    "author": "Achievement Network & Learning Commons",
    "relationshipType": "supports",
    "targetEntityKey": "caseIdentifierUUID"
  },
  "source_identifier": "0013fbee-3e76-500f-9978-42aa1a65f105",
  "source_labels": ["LearningComponent"],
  "target_identifier": "98d9b463-56bf-5710-9898-971b8a3c5155",
  "target_labels": ["StandardsFrameworkItem"]
}

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Schema release history

DateChanged
May 27, 2026Added examples as an optional LearningComponent property. Added ELA Learning Components (K–2) to the dataset; Added support for English Language Arts.
September 23, 2025First release with Mathematics support.