ECOLOGICAL LEARNING PARTNERS: MAKING INVISIBLE INFRASTRUCTURE VISIBLE

Helping practitioners reconnect with themselves and each other through contemplative mapping

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.

I work with learning communities to make invisible infrastructure visible—mapping the ecosystems where learning happens to reveal how our contexts, ourselves, and our relationships shape what we believe and how we act.

Our Vision

At Ecological Learning Partners LLC, we envision learning communities where practitioners thrive through visible, vibrant networks of connection and support—where isolation is transformed into collaboration, and hidden potential becomes shared strength.

Our Mission

We help learning communities see and strengthen the relational infrastructure that already exists—making visible the connections and patterns that shape how people experience their systems.

Our Process

Understand your context.

We start by learning about your learning community's unique challenges around connection and collaboration.

Map what’s really happening.

Through contemplative mapping, we help practitioners see the relational infrastructure and networks shaping their experience.

Identify where to strengthen.

Together, we identify where existing connections can be strengthened and what patterns might be shifting.

Support sustainable practice.

We help learning communities develop contemplative approaches that maintain connection over time.

Contemplative Mapping

Contemplative mapping draws on both rigorous research traditions and sustained contemplative practice. This approach combines systematic observation with contemplative inquiry to reveal patterns that conventional analysis alone misses.

The methodology helps practitioners develop what contemplative traditions call "discriminative awareness"—the capacity to observe institutional dynamics and relational patterns without reactive judgment, creating space for more skillful responses. Contemplative mapping reveals not just what the networks are, but how unexamined assumptions and biographical patterns influence what we see about connection and collaboration.

Strategic Partnership

I collaborate with learning communities, bringing both analytical expertise and contemplative inquiry to questions of connection and collaboration. Together, we:

  • Map the relational infrastructure shaping practitioners' experience

  • Build internal capacity for ongoing contemplative observation

  • Create sustainable approaches for understanding patterns from self to system

  • Navigate complex dynamics with both analytical rigor and contemplative awareness

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Wooden boardwalk leading towards a sunset with a hill silhouette and a partly cloudy sky.

About Sarika S. Gupta, Ph.D.

Traditional professional development in education focuses on practice and competencies while skipping over the person. My work helps practitioners reconnect with themselves, their why, and other people through contemplative mapping of self and system.

I've spent 25 years working in educational systems as a classroom teacher, university faculty member, and researcher. 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. This interdisciplinary lens shapes how I understand connection and responsiveness in educational systems.

Working across systems levels—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.

Drawing on contemplative practice, I developed mapping approaches that help practitioners in learning communities see themselves and their networks more clearly. I partner with learning communities to map patterns from self to system, revealing how individual experiences connect to larger institutional dynamics.

I founded Ecological Learning Partners LLC to develop these contemplative mapping methodologies—giving practitioners systematic tools to observe and map the relational infrastructure and institutional patterns they're embedded in, using their own contemplative capacity as the instrument.

Let’s Talk

I partner with educational programs, school leaders, and professional development providers to help practitioners reconnect with themselves and each other through contemplative mapping—using their own contemplative capacity to observe and map the relational infrastructure shaping their work.

If you're curious whether this approach might support your community, I'd love to hear more about your context.

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.

    • Gupta, S. S. (2019). Unraveling resistance in my journey to truth. Yoga Samachar, 23(1), 47-48.https://issuu.com/iynaus/docs/22_yoga_samachar_ss2019/s/11206351

    • Gupta, S. S. (accepted). In the liminal space: Self-compassion when systems fail. Lion’s Roar. 

    • Gupta, S. S., & Zhu, X. (accepted with revisions). Using situational mapping to explore collaborative dynamics in research-practice partnerships. NNERPP Extra.

    Current work includes multiple manuscripts articles under review and in preparation examining contemplative approaches to professional development and network analysis in collaborative research contexts.