Dispelling Myths for Students: Alternative Ways of Thinking in Online Education

This chapter examines some myths relevant to students and instructors when engaging in online learning. Education is a complex process where the student’s own experiences, learning styles, personal attitude, competencies, emotions and other intangible factors will influence learning performance. Adopted myths (whether conscious or not) may be a part of that intangible influence. Thus, it becomes essential for good practice and for a satisfactory experience, not only for those who learn online but also for those who teach online, to check one’s assumptions, or those of others, against real practice and against informed advice. As an example of such informed advice and reflective practice that academics can offer their students, two tables are provided in this chapter. Regardless of the actual electronic platform used, online learning and teaching can only become of greater and greater importance in tertiary teaching, making investigation of this issue both timely and important. While our chapter is embedded in current educational theoretical writing, we also intend this chapter to be of practical value for the teaching and learning domain as we critically analyse mythical drawbacks to online learning and offer practical steps to overcome both perceived and actual problems. Our own practice is based in the Spanish higher education sector and we write with an acknowledgement that online learning proceeds at a different pace and with different underlying challenges and assumptions around the globe. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.