All teams are groups of individuals but not all groups of individuals necessarily demonstrate the cohesiveness of a team. Teams outperform individuals because teams generate a special energy. This energy develops as team members work together fusing their personal energies and talents to deliver tangible performance results.
There are a number of benefits for teamwork, among them are:
Trouble is that despite their ubiquity and their omnipresence, teams rarely achieve breakthrough results. Instead, they sink to the level of the weakest performer and keep digging. The fault lies not with the team or its members, but with those who took a group of individuals, charged them with improbable goals, staffed them with uninspired leadership and expected them to function as a team.
Contrast that to an organized, well-oiled, and disciplined team, one in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Such groups allow members to achieve results far beyond their individual abilities. The irony is that when the needs of the group take priority, the needs of the individual actually are enhanced.
High performance teams do not result from spontaneous combustion. They are grown, nurtured and exercised. It takes a lot of hard work and skill to blend the different personalities, abilities, and agendas into a cohesive unit willing to work for a common goal. Behind every great team is a strong and visionary leader. A leader whose job is not to control, but to teach, encourage, and organize when necessary. This is the kind of leader that you, as a teacher, are going to form.