Even when walking her dog, Sarira Motaref, professor-in-residence in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (SoCEE), is attuned to structures and forces — and to her classes. Looking at how her dog’s tail moves and how the leash is being pulled might give her an idea for a real-world example that can help her students grasp a complex concept. “My teaching,” she says, “is always at the back of my mind.”
Motaref’s own engineering education began in her home country of Iran, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s in earthquake engineering. She moved to the U.S. with her husband in 2006, obtained her Ph.D. in civil engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, and joined the UConn faculty in 2011. Since then, she has received numerous teaching awards and accolades from both students and colleagues, served as assistant director of faculty development for the College of Engineering, and currently directs SoCEE’s Program for Innovation and Student Success.
For the past several years, Motaref’s research has focused primarily on engineering education, specifically neurodiversity in engineering education and the use of AI-powered personalized learning. She is part of the core team of Include, a project within SoCEE, funded by the National Science Foundation. Through the project, 16 I Courses (“I” for “inclusive”) were redesigned to better support neurodiverse students. Course content is offered in multiple formats, a variety of assessment modalities are used, and students have diverse options for showing their work. In one I Course, students were asked to choose a mechanics concept and apply it to their own interests.
“We had students who used engineering concepts to analyze backpacks, toys, sports equipment, even an orchid plant,” says Motaref. For another I Course, she and a colleague provided some students with 3D models to see if they performed better on exams than students who had access to only 2D models. (They did.)
“Probably our most important realization,” Motaref says, “is that the methods we are developing benefit everyone, not only students typically classified as ‘neurodiverse.’ After all, when you think about it, everyone is neurodiverse in some way.”
