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Furtak, Erin Marie

Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • Erin Marie Furtak is Professor of Education specializing in Science Education. She examines how secondary science teachers improve their classroom teaching through iterative co-design of formative assessment tasks, as well as how to promote more equitable science learning through classroom assessment.

keywords

  • Secondary science education, science teacher education, formative assessment, reform science teaching, life sciences education, science classroom discourse, teacher professional development

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • EDUC 4060 - Classroom Interactions
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Fall 2018
    Students design and implement instructional activities informed by what it means to know and learn mathematics and science, and then evaluate the outcomes of those activities on the basis of classroom artifacts. Students examine how content and pedagogy combine to make effective teaching. Students are required to work in a classroom 4 hours per week. Same as EDUC 5060.
  • EDUC 4340 - Advanced Issues of Assessment, Teaching, and Learning in Reading, Mathematics, an
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2023
    In this course, students engage with theories and practices of assessment and instruction in the key content areas of reading, mathematics, and science. This course is taught in two half-semester modules�one focused on reading and one on mathematics/science�and occurs in the fourth and final year of the elementary major. The course addresses issues of assessment, teaching, and learning that build from and extend knowledge and practice from the assessment course and the methods courses in the three focal content areas. Modules will examine the purposes and practices of assessment in reading, mathematics and science education in elementary education. Particular attention will be given to theoretical foundations in assessment, applications of theory in classroom practice, and the design and use of assessment techniques and tools to support teaching for student understanding. While some attention will be given to large-scale assessment, this will be necessarily limited and addressed only as it pertains to the influence of these assessments on the design and use of classroom assessment. A key goal of the course is to support advanced understandings that can be practiced, analyzed, and refined during student teaching in the final year of the major.
  • EDUC 5022 - LGBTQ+ Topics in Higher Education
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
    Explores the diverse aspects of college and university life for students, staff, and faculty who identify as LGBTQ+. Examines the different higher education supports and challenges for LGBTQ+ student populations.
  • EDUC 5060 - Classroom Interactions
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
    Students design and implement instructional activities informed by what it means to know and learn mathematics and science, and then evaluate the outcomes of those activities on the basis of classroom artifacts. Students examine how content and pedagogy combine to make effective teaching. Students are required to work in a classroom 4 hours per week. Same as EDUC 4060.
  • EDUC 8165 - Advanced Topics in Mathematics Education
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019
    Examines special topics in theory and research related to mathematics education. Topics vary each semester.May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.
  • EDUC 8175 - Advanced Topics in Science Education
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019
    Engages participants in the process of curriculum development. Principles that guide the development of curricula and learning environments are discussed as they integrate with learning theory. Participants develop and/or test specific activities in the classroom and modify them as a result. There is a particular focus on incorporating the practices of the discipline into each content-based activity. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.
  • EDUC 8730 - Advanced Qualitative Data Analysis
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2020
    Requires students begin semester with qualitative data already collected (from class project, pilot study, dissertation). Instructors present diverse methods of analyzing data and writing about interpretations. Instructors customize part of course to address specific topic of expertise, e.g., discourse analysis, video analysis, textual analysis, ethnographic analysis. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.
  • EDUC 8740 - Advances in the Assessment of Student Learning
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2021
    Focuses on theories underlying traditional and contemporary proposals for assessment of student learning, and design and research of large-scale and classroom-based methods to assess student learning. Explores intersections between large-scale and classroom assessment, although greater attention is given to issues related to classroom assessment.
  • EDUC 8804 - Special Topics
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2023
    Designed to meet needs of graduate students with topics of pertinent interest.
  • EDUC 8940 - Scholarly Writing for Graduate Students
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022 / Fall 2023 / Fall 2024
    Provides graduate students an opportunity to reflect on their current writing process, on their identity as an academic writer, and how their writing is shaping and being shaped by their emerging scholarship. Explores genres of academic writing, processes of peer review, and publication as students engage in weekly writing assignments that build toward a complete manuscript. Students should enter the class with a draft of an existing paper that they intend to work on.
  • EDUC 8950 - Proposal and Dissertation Writing
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2024
    Provides students with ongoing opportunities to write social science research in the context of the design, analysis and data representation, development, and write-up of students' dissertation proposals and dissertations. Students will learn to expand how they think about and use evidence, clarify their ideas and arguments, and improve their writing. Students working on proposals and dissertations should enroll.

Background

awards and honors

International Activities

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