معرفی
David C. Gosselin is a Professor in the Environmental Studies department within the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He serves as Director of the Nebraska Earth Systems Education Network (NESEN), which has grown to over 530 members across multiple states and international locations. His work focuses on developing online professional development for K-12 educators through the Laboratory Earth series of courses funded by NASA, emphasizing Earth system science education.
Gosselin's research centers on integrating cognitive and metacognitive skills in Earth science education. His work explores how content mastery activities (CMAs) can enhance learning by allowing students to develop planning, monitoring, and evaluation skills. He advocates for learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered learning environments that transition effectively from face-to-face to online delivery. His approach emphasizes systems thinking, where "everything is connected to everything else" in Earth's subsystems, and employs multiple learning strategies including narrated presentations, field activities, simulations, and interactive visualizations.
His publication record shows significant contributions to geoscience education between 2000-2003, with research focusing on university-school collaborations, teacher professional development workshops, and curriculum implementation. While the available texts don't list recent publications, his work has been supported by major funding agencies including NASA, NSF, DOE, and the National Drought Mitigation Center. His educational philosophy emphasizes intrinsic motivation over grades, allowing students to resubmit work until they achieve content mastery.
Gosselin has contributed to multiple collaborative projects including the Integrated Research and Education Project (NSF-funded), Process-oriented Environmental Change Education Workshops, and Earth System Science in the Community (EarthComm) professional development. He has trained approximately 110 teachers through these initiatives, potentially impacting over 7,000 students annually. His work addresses the challenges of interdisciplinary curriculum development, the importance of collaborative planning time, and creating flexible learning environments for educators.
Within the Environmental Studies program at UNL, Gosselin has helped develop a holistic, systems-based approach emphasizing sustainability. The program prepares students to work across disciplines on environmental challenges, developing 21st century skills including collaboration, critical thinking, ethics, and creativity. Despite program growth from 70 to nearly 600 student credit hours between 2008-2011, the program faces challenges with limited staffing consisting of one part-time faculty director and a full-time academic coordinator serving approximately 110 students.
