ECOLOGICAL LEARNING PARTNERS

Mapping to Make the Invisible Visible

Ecological Learning Partners LLC works with educators and educational communities to map their experiences, their relationships, and the conditions shaping their work.

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Working Together

We listen and learn. We talk with leaders and practitioners to understand priorities, culture, and conditions.

We facilitate mapping. We help practitioners document their individual and collective experiences and look for patterns in their maps.

We examine maps. Through individual conversations and group convenings, practitioners examine how their position shapes what they experience and what they can do.

We convene to act. We bring practitioners and leaders together to envision the infrastructure that supports their work.

Methodology: Contemplative Mapping

Contemplative mapping uses three maps:

  • Life/Self mapping - Practitioners draw their own educational journeys as maps, uncovering how their personal experiences shape how they teach, respond, and relate.

  • Situational mapping - Teams map the people, policies, and conversations shaping their work to see where collaboration is already strong and what conditions need to be built to support it better.

  • Practice mapping - Practitioners observe and document their own daily practices over time, noticing what feels easy, what feels hard, and where adjustments could be helpful.

Together these maps position practitioners as investigators of their own work.

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About Sarika S. Gupta, Ph.D.

I am a learning ecologist who specializes in contemplative mapping, a methodology that uses self, situational, and practice mapping to explore what influences a practitioner’s work and what conditions make it possible for them teach, partner, and navigate institutions.

Since 2000 I have taught preschoolers with and without disabilities, prepared teachers across five universities, directed externally funded research, managed a national philanthropic research portfolio, and worked at the state and federal policy level. In 2008 I began practicing Iyengar yoga, pranayama, and running. Through that practice I developed the capacity to observe myself, understand my position, and recognize how institutional conditions shaped what I could see and do. Contemplative mapping grew from that practice. I founded Ecological Learning Partners LLC so that practitioners have a partner in building this capacity.

My work leading to contemplative mapping has been published in Young Exceptional Children, Yoga Samachar, The New Educator, Distance Learning, Edutopia, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, Lion's Roar, Educational Leadership, and NNERPP Extra. I also document this methodology in my public blog, Mapping from the Margins.

I hold a Ph.D. in Special Education, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Early Childhood Special Education Leadership and Policy, and am completing an M.S. in Data Science to scale contemplative mapping through computational methods.

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Let’s Talk

ELP partners with educational communities whose leaders and practitioners are ready to look at what is shaping their culture and why.

Start here.

Publications Across Ecological Levels

    • Gupta, S. S., Cheatham, G. A., Strassfeld, N., Zhu, X., Medellin, C. & Nagasawa, M. (2024). Examining the ecology of preschool inclusion in New York City: A mixed-methods study underway. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491241229229

    • Gupta, S. S. & Rous, B. S. (2016). Understanding change and implementation. How leaders can support inclusion. Young Children, 71(2), 82-91. https://www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.2.82

    • Lieber, J., Butera, G., Hanson, M., Palmer, S., Horn, E., Czaja, C., Diamond, K., Goodman-Jansen, G., Daniels, J., Gupta, S., & Odom, S. (2009). Factors that influence the implementation of a new preschool curriculum: Implications for professional development. Early Education and Development, 20(3), 456-481. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409280802506166

    Technical Reports:

    • Gupta, S. S. & Guha, M. L. (2019). Conversations About Inclusion at the Center for Young Children at the University of Maryland, College Park: Final Summary. New York: Hunter College CUNY. 33 pages.

    Book:

  • Technical Reports:

    • Tirrell-Corbin, C., Sweet, S., Gupta, S., & Lieber, J. (2016). Evaluation of the birth to five service delivery models in Maryland – Phase I. College Park: University of Maryland Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention. 269 pages.

    • Tirrell-Corbin, C., Lieber, J., Cummings, K., Jones Harden, B., Klein, E., Silverman, R., & Gupta, S. (2016). Evaluation of the efficacy of Maryland's Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge grant. College Park: University of Maryland Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention. 183 pages.

    • Ruggiero, T., Gupta, S., Nicholas, A., & Mauzy, D. (2016). State spotlight on data use. Maryland: Establishing partnerships to build data use capacity. Menlo Park, CA: SRI International.

    • LaRocco, D. J., Bruns, D. A., Gupta, S. S. & Sopko, K. M. (2014). National early childhood special education leadership summit: Final report February 2014.

    • Gupta, S. S. (2011). Strategies to facilitate and sustain the inclusion of young children with disabilities [Policy Brief]. Denver, CO: The Colorado Center for Social Emotional Competence and Inclusion. 4 pages.

    • Sarpatwari, S. S. (2006). A qualitative analysis of the 1st Annual Joint Technical Assistance and Dissemination Conference. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. 10 pages.