From Pedagogical Paradigms to Hypermedia Design Patterns: Where to start?

Several studies exist that have reached the conclusion that there are significant correlations between learning style and learning outcome. Therefore, it becomes apparent that since a successful instructor is one who achieves the best “learning outcome” from most of his/her students, then he/she should be able to cater for his/her students’ different learning styles. When the instructor’s role is played by an educational hypermedia system, then its capabilities should be such so as to deal with different learning styles – something that can be regarded as primarily a design issue. This paper introduces the idea of using design patterns to provide solutions to the problem of how to best support learning styles via educational hypermedia applications.