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 came out. From these past experiences, I knew that I would never use group work in my future classroom. After a few days of observing Ms. Brewer's class, I was convinced to change my beliefs. She used group work every day, but not the group work I was used to. This was a group assignment in which students all had individual assignments and grades, but they were encouraged to collaborate on their ideas and opinions. I realized how important this was for my future class. If I stuck to my guns and asked students to constantly work alone, they might not gain the knowledge needed to work with their peers, or at least not in a social studies class. This ties in with what we read in Hess about how to use classroom discussion. Even if I just have students talk in groups of five, they gain many benefits, such as having a "positive influence on civic behavior" after leaving school and helping students understand that people have different opinions (Hess,