Meddler in the middle - the missing last mile?

Work in progress

Wondering if McWilliam's distinctions between - sage on the stage; guide on the side; and, meddler in the middle - might be useful for understanding the type of work done by the ASCILITE crowd.

McWilliam's (2009) addition of "meddler in the middle" to the "sage on the stage" and "guide one the side" got a mention somewhere at the conference. Apparently related to this blog post which appeared in Campus Morning Mail. A post that describes McWilliam's distinction between the three roles and includes a call for folk likely to be in the ASCILITE crowd to avoid being either sages or guides and become more likely meddlers.

I'm wondering how what is being presented at ASCILITE fits into these three roles? In turn, this begs the question about where our institutional L&T practices might fit?

It is important to restate McWilliam's point (2009, p. 287-288) that

Both Sage-on-the-Stage and Guide-on-the-Side have their place in the complex landscape that is teaching....In other words, the meta-categories “Sage” and “Guide” can themselves be representative of a complexity of pedagogical moves, not a simple formula.

Glazier's (2021) principles for building human connection online strike me as guide on the side. As does Deakin's tools guide (Colasante et al, 2022). Useful guides for navigating complex decisions about how to create good L&T experiences/environments. Potentially developing such guide's become an "excuse...to 'step out' of the main game" (McWilliam, 2009, p. 287). i.e. rather than engage actively in the process of developing those learning experiences, central L&T focuses attention on the guides.

Obviously the people at ASCILITE and the roles they represent in institutional L&T are not seeking to "step out" of that process. Some are very much involved in it. Instead, my question is if/how/what/where are the ASCILITE papers that talk about that active engagement in the main game?

McWilliams' (2009) description is

of a third meta-category geared up for creative capacity building – that of Meddler-in-the-Middle. This meta-category is descriptive of active interventionist pedagogy in which teachers are mutually involved with students in assembling and/or dis-assembling knowledge and cultural products.

What does an ASCILITE paper that talks (and the institutional practices/experience it reports on) about the experience of being mutually involved in the assembling and/or dis-assembling of L&T experiences look like? What am I missing?

That's what I need to be looking for now.

Does the nature of meddling make it hard to write papers? To get recognition?