Assistant Professor of Education
School of Education, Room #317
University of Colorado at Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Phone: 303-492-4242
Fax: 303-492-7090
E-mail: erin.furtak@colorado.edu
Website: http://spot.colorado.edu/~furtake

Erin Marie Furtak is assistant professor of education specializing in science education. As a former public school teacher, Dr. Furtak’s research interests involve issues pertaining to the training and retention of secondary science teachers, and the improvement of student learning through reform-based science teaching. Dr. Furtak teaches methodology courses for prospective secondary science teachers.

Dr. Furtak received a Chancellor Scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to fund post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Leibniz Institute for Science Education, both located in Germany. Her current research projects include an experimental study of the role of autonomy supportive teaching in improving student learning and motivation, as well as an analysis of formative assessment as a scaffold for students’ evidence-based argumentation. Dr. Furtak was also named a Young Scholar of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, which will fund her research with beginning Biology teachers in the Denver area until 2009.

Education:
Ph.D., Stanford University, Department of Curriculum and Teacher Education (Science Education), 2006
MA, University of Denver, School of Education, 2001
BA, University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology, 1999
Teaching Certification (State of Colorado, Secondary Science), 2000 – present