ECOLOGICAL LEARNING PARTNERS: MAKING INVISIBLE NETWORKS VISIBLE

Partnerships that strengthen connection and collaboration through contemplative mapping and data-informed insight

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 you and your team to map the invisible ecosystems where learning happens—revealing how our contexts, ourselves, and our relationships shape what we believe and how we act.

Our Vision

At Ecological Learning Partners LLC, we envision a world where every person thrives through visible, vibrant networks of connection and support—where isolation is transformed into collaboration, and hidden potential becomes shared strength.

Our Mission

We create tools and solutions that help people and learning communities see and strengthen their existing connections and navigate complexity.

Our Process

Understand your context.

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

Map what’s really happening.

Through contemplative mapping, we help you see the networks and relationships that drive collaborative success and identify opportunities for deeper connection.

Strengthen what matters.

Together, we identify where existing connections could be strengthened and how to tap into them.

Sustain the connections.

We help you develop collaborative practices that maintain stronger relationships over time.

Contemplative Mapping

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

The approach helps teams develop what contemplative traditions call "discriminative awareness"—the capacity to observe institutional dynamics and data patterns without reactive judgment, creating space for more skillful responses to complex challenges. Contemplative mapping reveals not just what the networks are, but how unexamined assumptions and biographical patterns influence what the data show about collaborative capacity.

Strategic Partnership

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

  • Co-design data-informed solutions that align with your strategic vision and operational realities

  • Build internal capacity while addressing immediate research needs

  • Create sustainable systems for ongoing network analysis and reflection

  • Navigate complex implementation challenges with both analytical rigor and contemplative awareness

Why Partnership Matters

The strengths and connections that will transform your work already exist within your learning communities. Partnership provides the outside perspective that helps you see what's been invisible from within. I bring 25 years of system-level experience to this collaborative work, understanding both the research landscape and implementation realities that communities of navigate daily.

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

About Sarika S. Gupta, Ph.D.

I'm an educator and researcher who has spent 25 years exploring how connection shapes learning—from early childhood classrooms to university faculty positions across Hunter College, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, and George Mason University. My work centers on the networks of relationships that determine whether children, educators, and communities thrive.

I've worked within educational systems from multiple vantage points—as teacher, coach, technical assistance provider, professor, and researcher—giving me insight into how individual relationships connect to larger systemic dynamics. My Ph.D. in Special Education and nearly a decade of OSEP-funded training in systems-building taught me to trace how policy requirements translate from federal systems to state implementation to program practice. My years teaching in inclusive classrooms, coaching teachers, and preparing teacher candidates illuminated the invisible collaborative work that policies expect but don't articulate or assume—the necessary relational infrastructure that good programming requires.

Understanding both how technical systems are designed to work and how they actually work at the program level revealed an opportunity: I could develop methodologies that make invisible infrastructure visible. Drawing on 17 years of Iyengar yoga practice, I use contemplative mapping approaches—combining visual mapping techniques with reflective practice—to help learning communities see the networks and connections that shape how people experience systems.

I partner with learning communities to map patterns from self to system, revealing how individual experiences connect to larger institutional dynamics. This work engages stakeholders in co-designing research questions and solutions, centering positionality, collaboration, and embodied inquiry. My emerging M.S. in Data Science complements this work, informing my long-term exploration of whether computational approaches might one day enable this mapping at scale, including the embodied practices that shape how we know and teach.

Ecological Learning Partners LLC represents this work in practice—partnering with learning communities to map the invisible infrastructure and make visible the networks of connection that already exist.

Let’s Talk

I partner with learning communities—with early childhood programs and schools to professional development providers and community-based learning initiatives—to explore how relationship patterns and institutional dynamics shape collaboration and support.

If you're curious whether this approach might support your work, 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.