2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engineering curricula are team-intensive by design, yet students are often expected to collaborate effectively without explicit instruction in how to form, manage, and adapt as a team under project pressure. In MIT’s chemical engineering project laboratory course, students work in small teams on open-ended experimental projects with real deadlines and sustained interaction with instructors, teaching assistants, and faculty supervisors. To make team processes explicit and actionable, the course uses EIxD, a structured team operating system that integrates emotional intelligence and team dynamics into the weekly routines teams use to execute their work. The EIxD team operating system serves as the skeleton and scaffolding that supports teams through uncertainty, uneven workload, procrastination, and the need for accountability in open-ended project work. Rather than treating teamwork as a separate or informal skill set, EIxD embeds collaborative behaviors into the way teams plan, document, reflect, and meet across the semester. This paper presents the six-component Team Formation Model, the required team routines and documents, and the course touchpoints through which the framework is implemented. Evidence from student-produced documents and end-of-semester completion reports collected between 2018 and 2025 suggests that although students may initially resist the framework’s formality, many come to rely on its structure as project demands intensify. Instructor field notes and course records further suggest that the framework supports team coordination, accountability, and the development of major deliverables, including project proposals, presentations, and final reports.