
- Pronouns: he/they
- Curriculum Vitae
- Website
- @DrSmarturo
Miramontes Baca Education Building, Room 400E
University of Colorado Boulder
249 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Arturo Cortez is an Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he is also a fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Science. As a learning scientist, Professor Cortez is concerned with designing and studying learning ecologies in which educators and youth engage in collaborative inquiry, develop agentic practices that support meaningful learning, and employ, redesign and repurpose tools, particularly digital tools, toward transformative ends.
Accordingly, Professor Cortez’s research agenda focuses on the following three related domains: (1) young people’s everyday cultural practices with technology; (2) intergenerational learning; and (3) educators’ development of robust, generative, and equitable pedagogies. Broadly speaking, Professor Cortez’s research explores how adult and young learners strategically engage with the sociopolitical and ethical dimensions of learning and co-design new social futures, especially with the use of everyday technologies. Professor Cortez uses sociocultural theories of learning to understand and design future-oriented, or speculative, pedagogies for intergenerational communities of learners.
Professor Cortez’s most recent work has been published in Cognition and Instruction, Journal of Futures Studies, Review of Research in Education, and Mind, Culture, and Activity. Moreover, his research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the George Lucas Educational Foundation, and The Spencer Foundation. Professor Cortez’s early commitments to amplifying the everyday practices of youth were jointly-honed and developed as a middle school teacher in East Palo Alto and a high school teacher in San Francisco.
Education
PhD Education, University of California, Berkeley
EdM Education Policy, Harvard Graduate School of Education
MA Teaching, University of San Francisco
BA Biological Basis of Behavior, University of Pennsylvania
**Prospective PhD students: please read my research statement to learn more about opportunities.