Part 2. Some Foundational Influences

It is important to remember that the Learning Strategist role is not defined by technical rationality. The job does not entail a set procedure to be followed by rote. At the risk of melodrama, it may be helpful to consider Parker Palmer’s reflections on being a teacher, a role very much in kinship with Learning Strategist. He says: “The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life.”  This resonates with how learning strategy work often feels, though “the classroom” is a more abstract concept for us. What Palmer’s insight invokes is a kind of bedrock idea about where our work starts. It starts with a pedagogy of care, and the idea that all are welcome. These two principles, above all, ground our approach. We welcome everyone, and we offer a form of care. It’s an art form, not to be over- prescribed by “technique”.

However, that does not mean the work is simply a matter of improvisation only. Though there is no foundational canon that informs the work of Learning Strategists, we do draw upon an eclectic but bounded set of scholarly ideas and disciplines that represent the eclectic nature of the job, and as we further define and clarify the parameters of the role, this intellectual foundation that grounds it will become itself better defined. Learning Strategists occupy shifting spaces of practice – sometimes teacher, sometimes coach, sometimes instructional designer, sometimes mentor – so what informs us in these practices is varied. What follows is a series of brief introductory descriptions of especially relevant sources of influence from which Learning Strategists draw insight.