Learning Strategist Professional Community
It may be useful to provide a quick word on relevant communities of professional support and development for Learning Strategists, so you can tap into a wider range resources and ideas.
Learning Strategists belong to a larger category of educators that could be called “Learning Specialists”. In my mind, these folks add two central pillars to the overall learning apparatus of schools: 1. helping students in the development of skills and dispositions necessary for more effective engagement with subject-matter learning; and, 2. helping students better understand the nature and purpose of their own learning, and to develop effective “stances” in service of that.
Some other professionals that would also belong to this broader category include:
Writing Consultants – typically working in Writing Centres or the equivalent, sometimes called Writing Tutors, or Writing Advisors, or Writing Coaches. These are the folks who support students in the development of effective academic writing and multiliteracy skills and offer a broad range of programming quite similar in nature to that of Learning Strategists. This community has established a deep and rich body of scholarship on their craft which is of real value and relevance to Learning Strategists. Ways to connect with that include:
- WLN: Journal of Writing Centre Scholarship – https://wlnjournal.org/
- International Writing Centre Association – https://writingcenters.org/
- Praxis: A Writing Centre Journal – http://www.praxisuwc.com
Tutors – an eclectic sub-category, but for our purposes, those folks who offer discipline or subject-matter specific learning and homework support. Ways to connect include:
Librarians – obviously its own category by itself, a central pillar of postsecondary institutions. But there are relevant overlaps with our work and the work of frontline library support staff who help students directly in effective research practices. Ways to connect include:
Learning Support Generally – an acknowledgement that Learning Specialists is a broad and overlapping category, occupied by a variety of folks who work directly with students to support them in their academic work. In Canada, most of us will know and be participating members of the Learning Specialists Association of Canada (LSAC), https://learningspecialists.ca/ which is our most pertinent professional association. Others include:
I will also add that one of the great virtues of this field of work is the eclectic nature of its influences. A good learning and study support specialist can draw upon just about any field or area of interest in service of their work:
- Athletics (coaching, skill development, practice…)
- Art (studio pedagogy, creativity, composition…)
- Business (strategy, competition, analysis…)
- Cooking (precision, planning, preparation…)
- Music (improvisation, repetition, structure…)
The list and the possibilities for relevant insight and lessons are potentially endless to the creative practitioner.
