Are you an educator deeply invested in helping neurodivergent, anxious, or struggling learners? Get ready for a deep dive into study skills and executive function strategies — teaching students how not to bore their own brains, in learning and life. Think: science of learning and executive function strategies, guest experts, and real talk about the craft of coaching. With a side of business advice for the self-employed coach. Come, dig in, and learn!
Are Your Students Thinking—or Just Complying? | Ashley Doty
What if a student looks completely engaged—taking notes, following directions, doing exactly what the teacher asked—but isn't actually doing much thinking? In this episode, I talk with Ashley Doty, founder of Uncomplicate Ed, about the difference between behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement—and why compliance can so easily masquerade as learning. We dig into what Ashley noticed while observing students taking notes in a high school chemistry class, how a small change to the note-ta...
8 Oct 2026
Should Students Know Their Own Diagnoses? | Liz Angoff
What happens when a student’s diagnosis could help them understand themselves—but the adults around them aren’t ready for them to know? In this episode, I talk with educational psychologist Dr. Liz Angoff about helping students become authentic collaborators in understanding their own brains, rather than simply telling them what an assessment says about them. We bring Liz a tricky situation straight from the Anti-Boring Learning Lab: a coach working with a teenager whose family is reluctant t...
25 Sept 2026
How Did She Grow Her EF Coaching Biz THIS Fast?! | Jordyn Shapiro
In this episode, Gretchen talks with Jordyn Shapiro, founder of Just Start LA, about what it looks like to build an executive function coaching business remarkably fast. Jordyn filled her own coaching caseload in just three months, opened a 2,400-square-foot office at 22, and now leads a growing team of young coaches. But the really interesting part is how she’s learned to build the systems and support she needs to keep that growth going. They talk about hiring and training coaches, learning ...
19 Sept 2026
A New Tutor Interviews ME on My Own Podcast | Alondra Padilla
In this episode, the tables get turned: new tutor Alondra Padilla comes prepared to interview Gretchen about how she found her way from teaching to academic coaching to founding the Anti-Boring Learning Lab—but pretty quickly, Gretchen starts asking Alondra questions too. What follows is a surprisingly honest conversation between two educators from different generations and very different backgrounds about the experiences that shaped them. They talk about being first-gen, shame and imposter s...
11 Sept 2026
Can You Teach Study Skills in 5 Days? | Catherine Pacilio
Catherine Pacilio, an executive function and academic coach and founder of Pacilio Coaching, joins Gretchen to unpack what happened when she and fellow Anti-Boring Learning Lab member Robin turned the science of learning into a five-day summer study skills intensive for middle and high school students. Catherine shares what worked, what students responded to, and what surprised her about teaching study skills online — including the differences she noticed between middle and high schoolers, an...
Frankie Trevor, a senior at California State University, Sacramento and former academic coaching client of Gretchen Wegner, joins Gretchen to reflect on how coaching skills can take years to fully take hold. Frankie went from a 1.39 GPA and deep shame about his grades to the Dean's Honor Roll and Presidential Honor Roll, with plans to take the LSAT and pursue law school. They talk honestly about his initial resistance to coaching, the relief of having a judgment-free person look at his grades...
23 Aug 2026
When Teachers Get Excited About Brain Science | Shane & Suzy
Suzy Evans and Dr. Shane Saeed, instructional coordinators in Colorado's St. Vrain Valley School District, have spent eight years building a different kind of professional learning experience: a voluntary Science of Learning Collaborative, coordinator-led and increasingly teacher-powered. In this conversation, they share what happened when Gretchen brought her working memory mini-lesson to their teachers—and how the "parking spaces" metaphor quickly became part of the language teachers used w...
30 Jul 2026
Why Great Coaches Need Better Business Systems | Patrick Quinlan
In this episode, Gretchen talks with Patrick Quinlan — actor, improviser, executive function coach, and dad — about the moment he realized his longtime way of working had become unsustainable, and in some cases too comfortable, for the families he served. Patrick shares his path from theater and tutoring into EF coaching, and why becoming a parent forced him to rethink in-home sessions, LA traffic, and the emotional labor of being students' "safe person." Together, he and Gretchen explore the...
30 Jul 2026
Executive Function Isn't Just Starting — It's Finishing, Too | Sarah Ward
In this episode, Gretchen talks with Sarah Ward — speech-language pathologist and Co-Director of Cognitive Connections — about why task completion is its own executive function skill, separate from starting. Gretchen opens up about her own struggle to finish things (yes, including a song she wrote herself about it), and Sarah brings decades of clinical experience into genuinely tiny, doable tweaks for classroom teachers, coaches, and tutors alike. They cover why students insist they're "done"...
30 Jul 2026
Why Asking for Help Is the Real EF Skill | Seth Perler
In this episode, Gretchen sits down with Seth Perler — executive function coach and creator of TEFOS, the Executive Function Online Summit, now in its 8th year. Gretchen expected to unpack what TEFOS has taught Seth over the years, and they do — but the conversation also goes further, into Seth's personal story and the single biggest skill that turned him from a self-described "lazy failure" into an internationally known EF coach. They also talk business, including Seth's "heart of service fi...
30 Jul 2026
How to Build a Sellable Academic or EF Coaching Business | Cathleen Pittman
In this episode, Gretchen talks with Cathleen Pittman — academic and executive function coach, organizational specialist, and founder of Our Learning Studio — about building a tutoring business, selling it, and then facing a sudden cancer diagnosis that made "what happens to my business if something happens to me?" feel anything but hypothetical. They dig into what actually makes a solo coaching or tutoring practice more valuable, why most of us assume this conversation doesn't apply to us (s...
19 Jul 2026
Who Should Teach Students How to Learn? | Susannah Cole
In this inaugural episode, Gretchen talks with Susannah Cole — executive function coach, educational diagnostician, and co-author of Flexible Mindsets in Schools — about the gap EF coaching fills and why school was never really designed to close it. Inspired by NPR's Wild Card, this first conversation runs three rounds of questions across three chapters of Susannah's life, going deeper than a typical interview. They trace her path from being misread as a student to burning out as a teacher, t...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Contact The Academic Coaching Podcast
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of The Academic Coaching Podcast?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
