Finish

This little book is my way of at least beginning to answer that opening question: “what does a Learning Strategist need to know and be able to do in order to be effective in the job?”  Much of this information is known by us, or intuited, or assumed, or guessed at, but it is not recorded or indexed in any comprehensive way. And sometimes it remains a mystery and we simply “make it up as we go”. Learning Specialist work has avoided becoming over-professionalized for some very good reasons. It is part of the virtue of the work that we are not bound by strict codes of practice, and we draw from an eclectic foundation.  But, this has also become a hindrance. It makes it difficult to operate with a shared understanding of our unique and defining purpose. It makes it difficult to be grounded in foundational, guiding principles. It makes it harder to onboard new professionals and guide them towards intentional professional development. It makes it harder to view learning strategy work as a vocation, full of depth and scholarship and professional integrity. And it makes it difficult for others, especially students, to fully understand and trust our work. So, this is a humble contribution towards that larger goal – not to over codify the practice and thus lose the substance, but to thoughtfully catalogue some of what constitutes the practice and thus enhance the substance.

As a bookend to that opening question that guides this book, I leave you with a follow up question: what does it mean to study?  This, I think, is a neglected question in our profession. I often wish we’d use the term “skills for study” rather than “study skills” because it reorients the emphasis to the act of study, what it means, how it’s done well. Part of our neglect of this is an understandable preoccupation with student well being. It can feel less salient to talk about skills for study when what we’re often presented with by students is the rawness and vividness of their emotional experiences revealing at once the prevailing phenomenon of university learning as a deeply troubling experience for some, and the equally prevailing phenomenon of everyone’s disposition to centre that in the conversation. But study, and learning is what we know and I propose that it is precisely a focus on skills for study, and all the social and emotional entailed in that pursuit,  that students need from us; that, for many students, a more present, joyful, effective approach to study can be a salve to their angst about being a university student, can relieve their sense of academic uncertainty. It’s why they’re here. It’s why we’re here. Study – not as something to do, but as something to fall into, where we “…do not remain at a distance from our object of study but, rather, our object of study envelops us, that we dwell in it” – (Claudia Ruitenberg). Some would say that’s an extravagant, impractical aspiration.  Studying, in that more impoverished sense, is just a means to a more banal end. I disagree. Why not set our sights on that loftier goal – to help student be in study? To aim lower is to reduce ourselves to mere technicians dispensing tips and tricks.  We should be guided by that idea as we explore the fundamental question – what does it mean to study? And, by degrees, we may start better defining and expressing the depth and value of our work helping student to be there.