Graduates from agricultural colleges should be prepared to take on the multiple workforce requirements demanded by future employers, including transferable skills like critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, and effective teamwork. Faculty can enhance the development of these soft skills by incorporating curricula mimicking real-world applications, such as team-based assignments. Although scholarship indicates teamwork inspires positive workplace attributes, such as increased productivity, better decision-making, problem-solving, and collaborative competencies, many students may feel frustration and anxiety when completing team projects. To better facilitate teamwork in the classroom, we examined student perceptions toward team-based learning in the classroom to inform recommendations for pedagogy. This study employed qualitative, phenomenological methods to collect students’ perceptions of teamwork in agricultural classrooms. Participants included 12 college of agriculture students at a public four-year university who had taken courses using team projects. Data were collected via face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the constant comparative method. To better facilitate teamwork in the classroom, six key themes emerged from student perceptions of team-based learning: the importance of strategic group assignments, providing clear and detailed instructions, instructors should actively participate in team discussions, promoting professional behavior and collaborative communication, encouraging the development of team contracts, and incorporating peer feedback supported by graded evaluations. Based on the findings, we recommend instructors to refine their teaching strategy when incorporating teamwork to reduce apprehension and anxiety. Specifically, instructors should foster a comfortable and collaborative environment, while providing structure through strategic group assignments, detailed instructions, contracts, and rubrics. Instructors should be purposeful and intentional in providing clear feedback during team discussions and on graded assignments. By providing intentional teaching strategies to promote collaborative teamwork, instructors can equip students with the skills and confidence needed to excel in both academic and professional collaborative environments.