The Learning Mutineers: A Motley Crew of Architects, Rebels, and Fixers

Question: What do motley crews have to do with learning?

Every pirate crew needs a system for survival. It's no different for a piratical pedagogue.

A motley crew is a diverse, unconventional group of individuals who bring different skills, backgrounds, and personalities to a shared endeavor. The term originally referred to the ragtag, mixed-background crews on pirate ships, where people from various walks of life came together under a common cause: survival at sea.

Among such persons as former slaves and military men and those of different religions and ethnicities, enter the hydrarchy—an explanation of pirate society presented by Marcus Rediker that describes:

"the peculiar and necessary community that evolves from the specific conditions of life at sea. Here is the reality: ship living involves tireless, back-breaking labor to maintain the mere inches of timber and iron separating life and death." (Greathouse, 2013, pp 193)

This is not a romantic way of living, but it necessitates dividing labor, overlapping skills, and ensuring that everyone has a crucial role of expertise in keeping the ship afloat. This was why pirate crews were motley.

Different tasks in education change the needs of their hydrarchy; therefore, they require different kinds of crews. Aboard Dark Classroom, a motley crew means a congregation of specialists—each with unique, ever-evolving expertise—who collaborate despite differences in roles, disciplines, or institutions. Their strength lies in their shared values and complementary expertise, making them adaptable, resourceful, and capable of tackling complex challenges together. To build something seaworthy that lasts, this motley crew knows their strengths, respects each other’s domains, and works together to keep the learning experience from sinking.

A crew mentality has been making waves. During our interview on March 6, 2025, Missina Mintner, MLS, who is a librarian and a crewmate at the University of Texas Arlington, offered:

It has been awesome because you know the beginning, you had the visualization, you had the faculty member, you had OER team, the librarian, the whole team. And it really does take a team effort. And so I think it makes it better.

This specific Learning Experience Design for a clinical experience course in perioperative nursing came together when it was brought in for revision. Dr. Leslie Jennings, who is a registered nurse and faculty for this course for University of Texas Arlington, had developed it on her own. She reflected on her experience with our motley crew after going through a turbulent quality review (personal communication, March 11, 2025):

I think it's such an interesting perspective because had we started as the motley crew at the beginning, I think our experiences would have been different. ... I would have loved to have had seen the librarians earlier on and wondered what they would have brought in earlier to the table.

Here’s the problem: higher ed is full of crew members who don’t even realize they’re on the same ship. Learning experiences sink because most of them are being developed by one or possibly two people who are missing key skills.

Crews must be high-context, ever adapting to their route. For example, a Learning Experience Delivery crew has different goals than the design and development crews. When it comes to conducting the learning experience, the crew consists of the learner-teacher(s), the learners, the learning architects, accessibility specialists, subject librarians, and instructional technologists.

Let's break down one of these crews more precisely. Here are the five key roles in a very specific Dark Classroom motley crew: the Learning Experience Design (LED) Motley Crew. During the design and development process, content experts, OER librarians, accessibility specialists, and instructional technologists contribute to the design of learning experiences, but without a clear map of how they work together, which is usually provided by a learning architect, the learning experience risks running aground. Let’s break down who does what and why it matters.

Access the full Infographic for the Learning Experience Design Motley Crew

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Roles and Duties

Content Specialist: The Knowledge Anchor

Every ship needs a solid anchor, and in course design, that’s the Content Specialist. Subject-matter expertise isn’t just about knowing the material: it’s about shaping it into something engaging, relevant, and actually useful beyond the academy.

Duties of the Content Specialist:

• Crafts and curates accurate, well-cited, multi-format course content.

• Develops meaningful, authentic learning objectives and assessments.

• Ensures the course connects to instantly useful real-world applications, not insular to the academy.

• Brings disciplinary knowledge to the table while keeping learning logistics in mind.

While all roles are equally important, the Content Specialist is usually the point of entry into the project. Their topic is the reason learners need the crew.

Keep in mind: a Content Specialist is not necessarily the Instructor. In fact, Content Specialists have a role in education, but their primary attention and tasks should remain in their professional domain. That's what allows them to provide authenticity instead of academic navel-gazing.

The Instructor's role is a different set of skills, which focuses primarily on delivery with evidence-based facilitation methods along with content knowledge, and is an important role with other learning crews. Without a strong Content Specialist, courses risk being outdated, misaligned, or just plain boring. They provide the topical substance that makes learning meaningful.

Leslie (personal communication, March 11, 2025) had this to say about her role:

I don't feel like I'm the project lead and I am totally OK with that because I'm not an instructional designer, nor do I want to be. ... having worked in the field, having been a nursing instructor for as long as I have been, I mean, obviously, you know, and understanding the content like no one else in the group could. Because of my role and experiences that's my unique place, right?

Learning Architect: The Navigational Strategist

A well-designed course doesn’t just happen—it’s engineered. The Learning Architect makes sure all the pieces fit together, from learning objectives to assessments to technology to instructional methods.

Duties of the Learning Architect:

• Aligns assessments, outcomes, content, and technology into a seamless experience.

• Ensures the course meets evidence-based quality standards (like Quality Matters).

• Helps instructors navigate and facilitate the course effectively post-launch.

• Keeps the crew and the project on course, preventing design chaos.

A course isn’t just a pile of content—it’s an experience. Without a Learning Architect, it’s like setting sail without a map. There's a reason why this role isn't called an instructional designer, though this is where that title would fit. The Learning Architect, much like a navigator, knows how to chart the way. But a learning experience isn't just design and development.

Their backgrounds are often quite varied, with experience in more than one of these roles. Their journey might be nontraditional, and they are constantly in pursuit of current research in the science and art of teaching and learning.

Keep in mind, this is only one crew, and the Learning Architect must have the methods and strategies for how to deliver this course. That perspective is imperative for certain practicalities have to be considered along the way.

Instructional Technologist: The Digital Hull Builder

Even the best-designed courses are useless if the tech gets in the way. That’s where the Instructional Technologist comes in, ensuring digital tools support learning instead of creating barriers, and using their skills to develop learning objects and build the learning experience.

Duties of the Instructional Technologist:

• Configures and supports the LMS and integrated tools.

• Trains faculty and students on effective use of EdTech.

• Troubleshoots usability issues and ensures compliance with institutional policies.

• Develops and maintains digital learning environments and objects.

Instructional Technologists aren’t IT or help desk support. They’re the bridge between technology and pedagogy, making sure the learning experience runs smoothly in a digital environment.

Often mistaken or mislabelled as Instructional Designers, they are the builders who deploy the technology to build learning objects and to put the design in the digital space. It can be a tricky mix to find this crew member, who is a guru in technical frameworks, the role of technology in learning science, and connecting these with human relationships.

While they have pedagogical knowledge to ensure alignment between tech and instructional needs, their skills include being able to provide technical directions, train stakeholders for self-sufficiency, and address errors and issues for the duration of the learning experience's lifespan.

 Accessibility Specialist: The All-Hands Advocate

A course that isn’t accessible isn’t a well-designed course. The Accessibility Specialist ensures that learning materials and platforms work for all students, not just the ones who fit a narrow mold.

Duties of the Accessibility Specialist:

• Implements accessibility solutions across all learning environments.

• Provides expertise in cognitive, behavioral, physical, and learning accessibility.

• Uses accessibility tools to ensure compliance with WCAG and institutional policies.

• Educates faculty and staff on making courses more inclusive from the start.

Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought. It should be baked into the design from the beginning. This role ensures no learner gets left behind.

There's a difference between Accessibility Support and Accessibility Specialists. This role can only be called a specialist if, like the Instructional Technologist, they have mastery over the tools to make the learning and all of its components compliant.

The strongest Accessibility Specialists have empathy as much as training, which means they belong in the decision-making process as early as possible. Their expertise includes much more than solutions for physical accessibility. They address emotional needs, psychological needs, neurodiversity, cultural limitations, economic limitations, and more.

 OER Librarian: The Knowledge Wares Curator

Textbooks shouldn’t cost as much as a semester’s worth of rent. The OER Librarian champions high-quality, affordable learning materials that cut costs without cutting corners.

Duties of the OER Librarian:

• Curates and vets no-to-low-cost learning materials that align with course objectives.

• Reviews resources for bias, diversity, and proper licensing.

• Connects faculty with professional learning networks and top-tier open resources.

• Guides instructors on effective OER integration and licensing.

OER is more than just free textbooks: it’s a movement toward democratizing knowledge. The OER Librarian helps courses tap into that power by curating, adapting, and ensuring the quality of open educational resources.

Like the Accessibility Specialist, this role requires more than just awareness. This expertise involves in licensing, instructional alignment, and digital repositories. Not all librarians specialize in OER, just as not all educators understand the nuances of Creative Commons, open pedagogy, and sustainable content development.

The strongest OER Librarians are not just resource curators but advocates for equitable learning, guiding faculty and instructional designers toward ethical, scalable, and impactful course materials.

The nursing LED crew has 2 librarians, including Megan Zara M.Ed, University of Texas at Arlington's OER librarian. When asked, she explained her take on the position: "I feel that my role was first to provide the licensing information and be the liaison for that stuff, even if I didn't know it, to try to find the information..."  (personal communication, March 10, 2025).

In our case, no one really occupied the Accessibility Specialist role; however, this was very much one of Megan's passions. So, on top of her OER training, she tried to absorb that position, starting with licensing "and then accessibility, which was a huge learning curve for me. Part of my job and part of my professional learning goals is accessibility. So it was exciting to get to be charged with it."

Megan's point of view is a testament not only to how essential each position is, but also to the overlapping and complementary skills we have to support one another.

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Why A Crew Matters

Each of these roles is critical, but the real magic happens when they form a functional hydrarchy. Content Specialists provide the subject's anchor, Learning Architects plan the route, Instructional Technologists ensure the crew has the tools for their tasks , Accessibility Specialists ensure everyone can make the journey, and OER Librarians keep the wares from spoiling.

Miss one, and the ship is not seaworthy. But when all five work together, you get courses that are rigorous, engaging, accessible, transformative and, most importantly, effective at improving learners' quality of life.

To prove the point, the LED motley crew hurt for being unable to recruit an Accessibility Specialist. Our quality review provided that proof. Capturing this hurt, Dr. Jennings' explained:

Not that one of the circles [of the Venn diagram] is more important than others because we all have value. But that [accessibility] piece, especially with your core values and how important it is to you, but as educators it's paramount for our students, I mean it is - if we want to have them be successful and set them up for success, it's paramount.

And to have [the Accessibility Specialist missing], it'd almost be like taking a content expert out, or an instructional designer out. Like, if they took [the learning architect] out, let’s just say, or your technology piece out, and they were like, OK, now Leslie and the OER librarian are gonna do that.

Oh my gosh!

Like it just doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

You can't have a surgeon in the OR and not have anybody helping him.

I mean, you just can't.

I mean, you know, you can't.

I mean, every member of that team is so vitally important.

We were able to recruit not one, but 2 accessibility specialists in the final stages as a reviewer and for technical skills. Still, all 4 of us knew that we had sprung a leak early. But as our crew grew to fill its missing role, we were able to make the learning experience ship shape.

What it takes to work together is where we're headed next. It takes commitment to a Ship's Code for the course of the crew to sail smoothly.

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On Deck:

Dark Classroom Ship's Code: 5 Commitments of a Motley Crew.

Keep a weather eye

Stories and explanations about the roles, goals, and responsibilities of crew members as they work together in pairs, triads, and more.

References

Rediker, M. (2007). Hydrarchy and Libertalia: The utopian dimensions of Atlantic piracy in the early eighteenth century. In R. J. Antony (Ed.), Pirates in the Age of Sail (pp. 166–179). Norton.

[interview references]

Additional Resources

 Leggett, J. M., Wen, J., & Chatman, A. (2018). Emancipatory learning, open educational resources, open education, and digital critical participatory action research. Digital Commons Network™. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu