New Technological Learning Environments: Tensions Between Teaching and Learning in Groups and Consideration of Learning Styles to Improve Quality of Student Experience

Abstract

This chapter explores new technological learning environments, and focuses on distance learning platforms. The chapter considers the student preferences as a factor that can affect user experience metrics. Student preferences can be contradicting in group learning environments, and this can be even more challenging in distance learning environments. The chapter explores student preferences as reflected by individual learning styles and used game theoretic models to investigate the interaction between a teacher and the group of students as well as between the students themselves. The chapter tackles user experience and how this is affected by individual learning characteristics and preferences of the students, and also explores the teacher’s goal of satisfying those student preferences. Given that learning preferences cannot be completely revealed to the teacher, then ways of improving student experience must be investigated. In addition to the teacher perspective, the chapter focuses on the dynamics between the students themselves during some simple interactions where information processing preferences are used as the parameter that affects student’s overall positive experience.