Patterns for designing Adaptable/Adaptive Educational Hypermedia

A number of studies in traditional class based education show that students whose learning styles match with the instructional approach “tend to retain information longer, apply it more effectively, and have more effective post course attitudes towards the subject than do their counterparts who experience learning/teaching mismatch. Thus, the goals of a “good instructor” should be both to adapt, at some degree and at least part of the time, his or her instructional approach according to students’ learning preferences, and to help students build their skill in their preferred and less preferred learning modes. Taking for granted that in a “student-centered” hypermedia learning environment, learning preferences and design of hypermedia learning applications should be also related, this paper aims to define the structure of the hypermedia design patterns that provide solutions to the problem of how to best support learning preferences via educational hypermedia applications and more specifically via adaptive/adaptable educational hypermedia applications.