Suzanne Bouffard
Senior Vice President, Communications & Publications
Suzanne Bouffard is senior vice president of communications and publications at Learning Forward. She is the editor of The Learning Professional, Learning Forward’s flagship publication. She also contributes to the Learning Forward blog and webinars. With a background in child development, she has a passion for making research and best practices accessible to educators, policymakers, and families. She has written for many national publications including The New York Times and the Atlantic, and previously worked as a writer and researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Duke University and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. She loves working with authors to help them develop their ideas and voices for publication.
All Articles
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Strengthening the educator pipeline takes shared responsibility
As I read through the articles in this issue about building the educator pipeline, the theme that stands out is shared responsibility. Many of the authors go beyond the concept of collaboration — an important and ever-present theme in professional learning — to a deeper notion of collective commitment. Shared […] -
Mentors make a difference
Middle school teacher Leighann Fields remembers her earliest teaching experiences with mixed emotions. “When I was student teaching, the teacher I worked with had been at the school forever, and she knew so much. But she didn’t share it with me. I had to reinvent the wheel while I was […] -
What's your mantra for this school year?
A recent meeting I attended started with this check-in question: What is your mantra for this school year? The range of responses spoke volumes about the climate in which we’re all working. People were hopeful, pragmatic, struggling, laughing, worrying. My favorites included: Progress, not perfection. We got this. Doing the […] -
Technology moves from resource to lifeline
When we started planning this issue on technology in 2019, none of us could have predicted how important technology would become in our schools and our lives. Tools that once seemed like a helpful supplemental resource have become a lifeline. As we start a new school year, the potential and […] -
A different kind of distance learning
MARCIA ROCK is one of the preeminent researchers on bug-in-ear coaching. In this method, an instructional coach watches a live video feed of a teacher’s classroom and provides in-the-moment feedback via a wireless earpiece. The process, which is sometimes compared to a football coach communicating with a quarterback, is become […] -
Learning as much as we can as fast as we can
Like so many students around the world, my children are learning at home, thanks to the impressive efforts of their teachers, administrators, and school support staff. My 4th grader’s teacher recently wrote in one of her weekly updates to the students, “I promise I’m learning as much as I can, […] -
The ultimate adaptive challenge
Ellie Drago-Severson and Mary Antón have known each other for more than 20 years and have worked together in different capacities to support educators through the lens of adult development. They recently spoke with The Learning Professional about how coaching can help leaders at all levels navigate the COVID-19 crisis […] -
To master the steps, revisit the basics
Whenever I learn something new — dancing, cooking, statistics — the beginning of the learning curve tends to be quite rewarding. It’s the next stage I find most frustrating, the stage I think of as going beyond the basics. In my early adulthood, I became enthralled with Lindy Hop. In […] -
Coaching during a crisis: Advice from experts
Instructional coaches are a trusted source of support for teachers and leaders, and that support is needed now more than ever. Every educator is navigating uncharted territory due to the Coronavirus, with varying levels of readiness for distance learning and a heap of other questions about how to meet students’ […] -
What do students need? Let's ask them.
Conversations about students’ needs are at the center of great schools. To determine those needs, we examine performance data, observe teaching practices, synthesize research. But how often do we listen to the perspectives of those we aim to help — students themselves? In any other industry, it is common practice […]
