I will definitely agree that students will learn more when they have discussions.Take me as an example, I still remember clearly the spring of 2003 when SARS attacked our city,students were not allowed to study in the classrooms together, and we had to go home and learned separately by on-line courses.So I have no partners to discuss with, and I got the lowest average GPA that semester.I think that's all because I did not understand pretty well without discussions with my teacher or classmates.