Importance
Peer to peer learning is an important skill to develop. Students spend most of their adult life learning from their peers.
Challenge
Fostering peer based learning skills online is more challenging than in person learning.
Solution
In my hybrid course I will implement online peer-based learning activities to focus on developing life-long learners. I will require the students to create instructional material (written and video) in small groups. I will use discussion boards to discuss the material provided with the students.
I typically encourage students to work on homework assignments in groups. My justification is similar to what you said in this post – you can learn a lot from your peers, and you can learn even more when you teach your peers. I haven’t yet figured out how to encourage the same thing online, but I like your idea of asking students to create instructional material in small groups. Seems like this is a nice incentive for online students to work with peers.