ECOLOGICAL LEARNING PARTNERS

A research practice making relational infrastructure visible in early childhood and educational systems

LET'S TALK
City street at sunset with the sun shining directly down the street, creating a bright glow and sun rays. Tall buildings line the street, and pedestrian crossing lines are visible on the asphalt.

We use contemplative mapping methodologies to help practitioners and system designers understand what's actually shaping their work — and build the conditions to change it.

The Problem

Traditional professional preparation focuses on practice and competencies while skipping over the person and the arrangements that enable their work. That gap shows up most in how we prepare, develop, and support practitioners—we ask them to engage in complex relational work without the foundational capacity to notice what's happening in their own bodies, understand how their positions shape what they see, or recognize how context influences their practice. This grounding in self and position is essential—it's where work like culturally responsive practice actually begins.

The Solution

Contemplative mapping creates the conditions for practitioners to see what's actually shaping their work — not to arrive at predetermined answers, but to develop the capacity to examine their own experience, their positions, and their systems more clearly.

How We Work

Understand your context.

We learn what's shaping your system — your priorities, your history, and the relational terrain practitioners are navigating. We facilitate conversations that invite practitioner voices into examining priorities, planning and next steps.

Map what’s really happening.

We work with practitioners to see how their own experience, positions, and systems are shaping what's possible — making visible what conventional analysis misses. Rather than imposing external solutions, we create space for teams to identify their own strengths and develop approaches that align with their culture and mission.

Build capacity from self to system.

Practitioners develop the foundational capacity to observe patterns and navigate their contexts with greater clarity and skill — recognizing how their own contexts and histories influence their responses, and sustaining ongoing reflection.

Embed sustainable infrastructure.

We build structures that fit your culture and can be sustained without us — identifying where existing strengths can be better leveraged, what institutional barriers prevent collaboration, and how to support ongoing implementation. When the infrastructure is working, we step back. You continue.

Our Methodology:

Contemplative Mapping

Contemplative mapping combines systematic observation with contemplative inquiry to make visible patterns that conventional analysis alone misses.

The methodology includes three approaches:

  • Life mapping - Practitioners create visual representations of their own educational journeys, discovering how personal experiences shape professional responses. When practitioners map their own school experiences, they often discover patterns—like how their fear of math teachers shapes how they respond to children who struggle, or how feeling excluded as a child influences their commitment to inclusion.

  • Situational mapping - Teams map the people, policies, resources, and conversations affecting their work, making visible the institutional dynamics influencing collaboration. Teams identify who actually makes decisions, where communication breaks down, what policies create barriers, and how competing priorities across organizations affect individual and partnership work.

  • Practice mapping - Practitioners observe and document their own embodied practices over time, building capacity to see what's actually happening rather than what they assume is happening. Practitioners notice patterns in how they move through their day, what physical spaces support or constrain practice, and how their own body signals when something needs attention.

Together these approaches help practitioners develop and refine their discriminative awareness, or their capacity to observe institutional dynamics and relational patterns without reactive judgment, creating space for more skillful responses.

Wooden boardwalk leading towards a sunset with a hill silhouette and a partly cloudy sky.
A woman with black hair wearing a black leather jacket and a black top, standing outdoors in an urban area with blurred background.

About Sarika S. Gupta, Ph.D.

My work helps practitioners reconnect with themselves and each other through contemplative mapping of self and system, and helps system designers build the practice architectures that make sustainable implementation possible.

I've spent 25 years working across early childhood systems — as a classroom teacher, university faculty member, clinical program coordinator, and researcher. I've directed large-scale mixed-methods studies from inception through dissemination, managed research portfolios and teams, and coordinated clinical preparation programs across multiple institutions. My master's, doctorate, and postdoctoral fellowship were funded by OSEP training grants in early intervention and early childhood special education systems-building. I hold a Ph.D. in Special Education, I've maintained an Iyengar yoga practice for 17 years, and I'm completing an M.S. in Data Science to explore computational approaches to mapping and scaling contemplative practices in professional development. This interdisciplinary lens shapes how I understand connection and responsiveness in educational systems.

Working across each level of those systems — from classrooms to state implementation to federal policy — showed me the gap between how systems are designed and how they actually work. Professional development asks practitioners to engage in complex relational work without providing the foundational capacity to notice what's happening in their own bodies, to understand how their positions shape what they see and experience, or to recognize how context influences their beliefs and actions. This grounding in self and position is essential — it's where more complex work like culturally responsive practice actually begins.

Contemplative mapping emerged from that gap. I founded Ecological Learning Partners to help practitioners use contemplative mapping methodologies to understand the hidden dynamics shaping their work — and to build the partnership infrastructure that makes that work sustainable.

Let’s Talk

We partner with districts, state agencies, higher education institutions, and early childhood programs to make relational infrastructure visible and build the conditions for sustainable implementation. Reach out to start a conversation.

Resources & Publications

    • 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.

    • Gupta, S. S. (2021). Mapping the design and facilitation of critical self-reflection in a culminating clinical course for early childhood special education teacher candidates. The New Educator, 18(1-2), 42-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/1547688X.2021.2005855

    • Gupta, S. S. & **Lewin-Smith, J. (2020). Employing design-thinking to create opportunities for ECSE teacher candidate reflection through infographic design in an online course. Distance Learning, 17(2), 11-23.

    • Gupta, S. S. (2020). Building practitioner resilience for change in EI/ECSE. Young Exceptional Children, 24(1), 3-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1096250620913258

    • Gupta, S. S. & Daniels, J. (2012). Coaching and professional development in early childhood classrooms: Current practices and recommendations for the future. NHSA Dialog, 15(2), 206-220. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240754.2012.665509

    • Gupta, S. S., Sherif, V., & Zhu, X. (2023). Re-examining state Part C early intervention leaders' views through a positive lens on leadership: A qualitative secondary analysis. The Qualitative Report, 28(2), 517-543. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2023.4786

    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.

  • Current work explores how contemplative mapping methodologies apply across professional development, research-practice partnerships, and teacher preparation, with pieces forthcoming in 2026 and 2027.