It should be encouraged, but not forced. I can't stand working with other people because most of the time I end up doing all the work.

love the first answer but that's the thing even the ppl that use others gotta figure out how to work in a group and actually contribute because in the real world there are few jobs that work independently of other people. you gotta learn how to work w others to get the job done.

I think that teamwork should be encouraged in school. I am a teacher, and I try to implement as much collaborative learning as possible. I think the advantages are: it gets students away from the typical lecture scenario, it gives them a chance to interact/learn from their peers, and students can learn more from teaching something than being taught. The only disadvantage I can think of is that some students don't learn as well in this format, for a variety of reasons. I think one of the most common reasons is that it's hard for some to concentrate on their work while interacting so closely with friends. Overall, I think it's a very effective way for students to learn.

Advantages: shared pool of knowledge means you do not have to it all by yourself as some will know more and less about different areas than you. Two heads are better than one - you increase the amount of knowledge available to use. If one person is sick the project will not fail as other teamn members will cover your work load. Power-basing is not an issue - this is when one person knows how to do something and because knowledge is power, does not tell anybody else and keeps it to himself - making him valuable - you cannot sack the only guy who can work the computer can you? This behaviour is the disadvantage of no team structure existing - you end up with lots of 'mini-hitlers' and this will demoralise and demotivate other staff thus decreasing productivity and possible impacting staff turner over (eg, they just keep leaving). If there is no team to fall back upon and this 1 guy drops down dead he may well take the business with him, This kind of setup will make for mniserable staff and happy staff doing lots more work than unhappy ones. As a rule, the team is better than no team at all - with a team,you are not putting all your eggs in one basket and when people really work with each other as a team, it is really, really cool and makes work feel like play but everybody needs to be able and willing to share information freely - there must be no hierarchical issues and one one-upmanship going on. Does this help?

advantages can be better results since different people have different skills and what one can see, the other might not if working alone. disadvantages can be arguments since what one of them would want to do, the other might not want to...