They are related. They are both individual learning.

One thing I have observed in my own experience (my own, and my, mostly home educated, kids) is that both one to one teaching AND learning on one's own (the amount of it being practice varying with subject) are better than classroom/lecture learning. This is not a statistical sample or a study, but it is three people across multiple subjects, at a pretty full range of levels (from primary school level to postgrad).

Maybe much learning is an individual activity and learning in groups is just ineffective?

> Maybe much learning is an individual activity and learning in groups is just ineffective?

Learning in groups is wildly ineffective from the perspective of gaining functional mastery over some subject (whether writing well, solving algebra problems, etc).

However, it does have a lot of unrelated benefits, arguably more important: learning to collaborate with others, understanding how others think and learn, understanding your own skill level by direct comparison with others, competition as a motivator for learning, and more.

I am not convinced that those are realised in real life.

The joy of learning is a better and more sustainable motivator than competition.

Learning to collaborate with others is an important skill, but I am not sure it is particular often promoted within classroom learning. There are lots of things you can do (sports, hobbies, anything that aims at an end in a group) that are better at teaching collaboration.

Spending less time on learning frees up time for other, IMO better, ways of learning all those skill.s

Learning in groups is not the same as learning in a classroom.

When I was a freshman, we created an impromptu "Calculus Brotherhood", met in 4-6 people and attacked problems together. It worked freakingly well.

I would argue that learning in groups is potentially exponentially more effective. There is a lot of individual interactions that go on when people are all learning something at the same time. Tidbits that they each share with one another. And emotion that social interactions evoke is a powerful motivator for mental rewiring.

But I don’t want to dismiss your insights. I’m curious what the difference is that I’ve experienced. Certainly just putting random people together isn’t nearly as beneficial as grouping by ability, or motivation to learn the topic is useful. Maybe that is a necessary requirement for effective group learning?

I have studied in streamed classes (in a school that was very selective anyway) so closely grouped by ability.

I did find working with friends in small groups effective at postgraduate level (although we organised it ourselves) and I would have done better to have done more of that. However this was a small group, not a class.

Classrooms and lecture rooms do not promote interactions. On the other hand one to one tuition is continuous interaction, hopefully with someone who is a better model for interaction that other kids, and who is encourages interaction.

I think we are talking about four different things here. Self teaching, 1:1, small groups, and classrooms. 1:1 and learning oneself are far more effective than classrooms. I cannot compare with small groups, and they are used at some universities (e.g. the tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge), but my feeling is that it will be highly effective for the right people and the right subject. Then again, those universities require a lot of ability and motivation to get into, so maybe that is why it works for them.