Controlled Chaos: How Structure Enables Interdisciplinary Teamwork in Mega Classes

As engineering education increasingly integrates teamwork and interdisciplinary learning, scaling these experiences to accommodate the large cohorts typical of engineering programmes presents unique challenges. Smaller courses benefit from organic, instructor-led interactions that are typical of teaching interdisciplinary team projects and common in literature; extremely large modules (900+ students) demand structured frameworks to ensure consistency, engagement, and skill development as well as making efficient use of the limit resources available. Prior research highlights the importance of self-directed learning and team dynamics at smaller scales, but the role of structured processes in supporting these at scale remains underexplored. This study builds on work previously done by the authors on the impact of extremely large-scale cohorts on the pedagogy of interdisciplinary team projects by unpacking how structure can facilitate effective teamwork in two large-scale engineering modules—one in the Global North and one in the Global South.