Before this fall, I despised group work. As a student forced to do a group project, it was the death of me. I was always forced to do all the work and it never felt right when the grades were posted. Because of these past experiences, I knew I would never use group work in my future classroom. After observing Mrs. Brewer's lesson for a few days, I was convinced to change my belief. He used group work every day, but not the group work I was used to. This was group work where all students had individual assignments and grades, but were encouraged to collaborate on their ideas and opinions. I realized how important this was for my future classroom. If I were to stick to my ideas and constantly have students work on their own, they may not gain the knowledge needed to work with their peers, or at least not in a social studies course. It relates to what we read from Hess about how to use discussion in class. Even if I have students discuss in groups of five, they still get many benefits, such as having "a positive influence on civic behavior" after leaving school and helping students understand that people have different opinions (Hess,