Can You Teach Study Skills in 5 Days?
Welcome to Episode 8 of the Academic Coaching Podcast.
I’m joined by Catherine Pacilio, an executive function and academic coach, founder of Pacilio Coaching, and certified member of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab.
This summer, Catherine and fellow Lab member Robyn took what they’d learned in the Lab—and resources they have access to as active members—and turned them into something new: a five-day study skills intensive for middle and high school students.
I especially wanted to share this conversation because it’s such a good example of what can happen when coaches don’t have to build everything from scratch. Catherine already had the Anti-Boring Toolkit, plus student-course seats that are one of the ongoing benefits available to certified Lab members who maintain their membership. She and Robyn took those resources, adapted them for their own students and teaching styles, and created a new summer offering for their businesses.
Here’s what happened.
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You'll Hear Us Talk About
How two Lab members turned resources they already had access to—including seats in the Anti-Boring Student Toolkit Course—into a brand-new summer offering for their businesses
How Catherine adapted the Anti-Boring Toolkit for a five-day format—including Backwards Learning, the Study Cycle, Quizzable Study Tools, and bite-sized mini-lectures (all things you learn about when you get certified as an Anti-Boring Coach)—rather than creating a curriculum from scratch
The creative ways Catherine added her own "special sauce" to the mix, including a physical-challenge game that had students doing wall pushups and star jumps for wrong answers
What Catherine noticed about teaching the same content to middle schoolers versus high schoolers—from session length to how much structure each age group wanted
How she used the summer offering to attract semester-long clients and grow her client load
And so much more!!
Enjoy listening! And if Catherine’s story gets you thinking about what you could create with a bigger toolkit and a community of smart educators alongside you, we’d love to have you in the Lab.
About Catherine Pacilio
Catherine Pacilio is an executive function and academic coach for adolescents and the founder of Pacilio Coaching. She brings 17 years of experience in education, a master's degree in Special Education, and certification as an Academic and Executive Function Coach through the Anti-Boring Learning Lab. Catherine works with middle and high school students to build practical, personalized systems that support confidence and independence.
Links + Resources
Questions This Episode Answers
What did Catherine actually build this summer?
A five-day study skills intensive for middle and high schoolers, co-designed with fellow Lab member Robyn. Rather than creating a summer curriculum from scratch, they built from the Anti-Boring Toolkit they already use in their coaching. Catherine was also able to give participating students access to the Anti-Boring Student Toolkit Course using student seats available to certified Lab members who maintain their membership. Catherine ran hers online; Robyn's version was designed to work in person too.
Why a five-day format instead of ongoing coaching?
It gave students who weren't ready to commit to a full year of coaching a low-stakes way to get exposure to study strategies—a "course with coach flavor," as Catherine put it. It also let Catherine reach families who'd paused during the summer and build relationships with a few students who'd go on to become regular clients.
What did a typical session look like?
Roughly 75 minutes, Monday through Friday, mostly interactive: short mini-lessons, partner work, dry-erase board challenges, brain breaks, and retrieval practice built right into the activities rather than saved for later.
Which parts of the curriculum did they use, and which did they skip?
Nearly the whole Anti-Boring Toolkit, minus the module on planning for tests. Catherine and Robyn felt that one landed better once the school year actually started, so Catherine circled back to it with students in the first week of school.
How did the high school and middle school formats differ?
High schoolers did "Backwards Learning"—watching Toolkit videos before each session—then spent session time reflecting, practicing, and choosing tools. Middle schoolers got the mini-lesson and the practice in the same session, without homework in between.
What worked especially well?
Built-in movement and immediate practice. One activity paired quiz-and-recall with physical challenges (wall push-ups, jumping jacks, burpees) for wrong answers—a way of tying a dopamine boost to the act of studying. Students also responded strongly to a metaphor exercise built around the retrieval-practice formula (repetition, variation, spacing), which one group reframed using a music metaphor.
Did group or one-on-one work better?
Both had upsides. One-on-one let Catherine pivot in the moment, follow a student's interests, and skip ahead or slow down as needed. Group sessions brought normalization—kids realized their struggles weren't unique—plus peer teaching and, by her account, genuinely fun group dynamics by the end of the week.
What would Catherine change next time?
A few things: shortening middle school sessions from 75 to roughly 60–70 minutes, possibly splitting into three age bands instead of two (rising sixth graders, middle school, high school), and giving students more of a menu of strategy options rather than asking them to generate ideas from scratch on the spot.
How did families respond?
Positively. Parents said the two-step intake and prep process (an initial meeting, then a technical walkthrough the week before) made onboarding easy, and most felt the daily workload was manageable. Every family who filled out the survey preferred the back-to-back five-day structure over spreading it across several weeks, mainly because it was easier to schedule around summer plans.
Is this a replacement for ongoing coaching?
No—and Catherine flagged this as something she wants to communicate more clearly next time. The intensive focuses on surface-level study skills, not the executive function work she does in ongoing coaching, like task initiation or attention control. She's now considering a short parent-facing video to make that distinction clear from the start.
What happens after the five days end?
Catherine follows up with each student in October, about two months in, once they're settled into the school year and actually need to retrieve and apply what they practiced over the summer.
Wait—Lab members can use the Toolkit to create their own offerings?
Yes. Active members of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab have access to the Toolkit and resources they can use in their work with students. Certified members also have access to student seats they can use with their own students as long as they maintain their Lab membership.
Catherine’s summer intensive is one example of what that can look like. She didn’t simply reproduce the Toolkit as a course. She and Robyn used it as a foundation, then added their own creativity, coaching styles, activities, and decisions about what their particular students needed.
Want Resources Like the Ones Catherine Used?
Catherine didn’t have to invent her summer curriculum from scratch. As an active member of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, she already had access to the Anti-Boring Toolkit and a community of other academic coaches to learn and collaborate with. And as a certified member, she had student seats she could use to give her own students access to the Student Toolkit Course.
The Lab is where academic and executive function coaches come to build their toolkit, deepen their practice, learn alongside other coaches—and figure out how to put all of it to work with actual students.