Matching Learners with Materials and Learning Experiences

We propose a fine-grained multi-faceted metadata schema for precise, highly individualized matching of students with learning resources (materials and experiences) This match must consider (1) the student's present state of knowledge and their learning objectives (the student's place in a learning trajectory) and scaffolding requirements; (2) student strengths materials should draw on to support learning and student challenges materials should help the student meet; (3) the student's learning style; (4) the student's cultural and social background; (5) time and support resources available to the student; and more. We first draw on guidelines for materials selection ([x]. [y], [z]) and literature in the learning sciences to derive metadata requirements and then consider two learning materials metadata standards and two learning material repositories ꟷ the formal metadata used and additional information available (and possibly amenable to automatic extraction) in the learning object description. We also discuss how one can get values for metadata elements through automatic extraction, crowdsourcing, and feedback from students and teachers using a learning object.