What is "Meaningful learning?" Studying done alone will help you learn, but sharing what you've studied with others will lead to meaningful learning. If you read all of Shakespeare's plays, and never talked about them with anyone, or shared your opinion with someone else, how meaningful is that?

Currently, 80% of companies with more than 100 employees use some types of teams. 90% of all US employees work part of their day in a team. Our most successful companies realize that social learning is vital to success of it's business... they will eventually need to learn this skill to be successful in life, so to focus on the second part of the statement ... "thus students SHOULD HAVE OPPORTUNITES to learn all skills, knowledge and concepts socially" What world are we preparing them for, if we don't teach them how to work together and share ideas with one another?

New media has changed the definition of social. Social networks are online communities where we learn about most of our news. (I learned about the Newton tragedy and the Boston bombings from my Facebook news feed) 84% of people monitor their news and information through social network sites. We also learn about each other's lives through facebook and Google Plus. We share experiences. We share stories. We learn from each other... and while we may be reading these stories alone, we are learning from each other's experiences.

Let's look at this argument, not from an academic standpoint, but from a child's standpoint. What do they face, and what do they learn, from each other? While we as educators want to think of learning in a positive manner, they also learn about sex, drugs, bullying, alcohol, violence, and death long before most parents are comfortable with. That learning isn't done alone, in a purposeful manner led by an adult. That learning is done through social interaction with peers. The introvert, who doesn't know about these things, hears about them socially, and may research them on their own, but the reason for the learning is ultimately forced by a social behaviour.

We must first understand the difference between studying and learning. While some people may STUDY better alone, they will ultimately forced to show that learning off in a social setting. Those who study alone, become more knowledgeable of a subject, and be able to teach those around them (or make themselves look wiser to the group, adding to their interpersonal value). Gaining knowledge and not sharing knowledge with others (be it teachers, peers, students) goes against everything we as humans have evolved to be since the start of human history. Social learning itself is the basis of evolution. As we heard in the link below (TED Talk for Howard Rheingold), somewhere in human history, we learned to work together to take down a wooly mammoth.

Studying done alone will help you learn, sharing what you've studied with others will lead to meaningful learning. If you read all of Shakespeare's plays, and never talked about them with anyone, or shared your opinion with someone else, how meaningful is that?

Currently, 80% of companies with more than 100 employees use some types of teams. 90% of all US employees work part of their day in a team. Our most successful companies realize that social learning is vital to success of it's business... they will eventually need to learn this skill to be successful in life, so to focus on the second part of the statement ... "thus students SHOULD HAVE OPPORTUNITES to learn all skills, knowledge and concepts socially" What world are we preparing them for, if we don't teach them how to work together and share ideas with one another?

New media has changed the definition of social. Social networks are online communities where we learn about most of our news. (I learned about the Newton tragedy and the Boston bombings from my Facebook news feed) 84% of people monitor their news and information through social network sites. We also learn about each other's lives through facebook and Google Plus. We share experiences. We share stories. We learn from each other... and while we may be reading these stories alone, we are learning from each other's experiences.

Let's look at this argument, not from an academic standpoint, but from a child's standpoint. What do they face, and what do they learn, from each other? While we as educators want to think of learning in a positive manner, they also learn about sex, drugs, bullying, alcohol, violence, and death long before most parents are comfortable with. That learning isn't done alone, in a purposeful manner led by an adult. That learning is done through social interaction with peers. The introvert, who doesn't know about these things, hears about them socially, and may research them on their own, but the reason for the learning is ultimately forced by a social behaviour.

We must first understand the difference between studying and learning. While some people may STUDY better alone, they will ultimately forced to show that learning off in a social setting. Those who study alone, become more knowledgeable of a subject, and be able to teach those around them (or make themselves look wiser to the group, adding to their interpersonal value). Gaining knowledge and not sharing knowledge with others (be it teachers, peers, students) goes against everything we as humans have evolved to be since the start of human history. Social learning itself is the basis of evolution. As we heard in the link below (TED Talk for Howard Rheingold), somewhere in human history, we learned to work together to take down a wooly mammoth.