Three Misconceptions That Get in the Way of Great Academic Coaching
A few years ago, a college student with ADHD — we'll call her Ananda — came to me for academic coaching mid-semester. Her physics class was the bugaboo. She had an F on the first two midterms, with only a final left.
Mathematically, she needed to score a 96 on the final just to pull her grade to a C. By any normal measure, that situation was not recoverable.
But guess what?! After a month of intensive academic coaching, she got a 90!! how is that possible?!
She still ended the semester with a C — the hole was too deep to score higher. But something shifted in Ananda that semester that was bigger than any grade, and we'll get to that at the end of this post.
What helped with her big win? Certainly she worked hard. That’s clear. But also I want to give myself some credit — I managed to use all my Anti-Boring tools in a short time window to deliver exactly what she needed to unlock her own capacity.
And also: I didn’t fall prey to three misconceptions about coaching academic skills that I see all the time in new coaches to the Anti-Boring Lab (and that honestly I used to believe, in my early days).
Those three misconceptions are what this post is about. Each one sounds completely reasonable through a specific lens. And yet each misconception, held too tightly, works against what we're actually trying to do as academic and executive function coaches for students.
Let’s explore these misconceptions through the lens of Ananda’s story.
Misconception #1: "My Job Is to Draw Out Their Self-Knowing, Not to Tell or Teach"
This misconception shows up most often with coaches who've had formal life coach training — ICF-style programs that emphasize powerful questions and client autonomy.
In the life coaching tradition, teaching a skill can feel like the opposite of coaching. If you're telling, you're not coaching.
There's real truth here. Student agency matters enormously. Coaches who lecture, prescribe, and expect compliance over connection do not shift student habits and mindsets as much as we might wish.
But a coach rigidly committed to “pure” life coaching methods might have sat with Ananda and asked a lot of powerful questions — what had she already tried, what did she think was getting in the way, what pathway felt most true for her. And Ananda — thoughtful, earnest, genuinely trying — would have answered as best she could.
The problem with neurodivergent students with executive function challenges is this — they don’t know what they don’t know. That was certainly true for Ananda.
She had no inner wisdom about the most evidence-based study strategies waiting to be drawn out with the right empowering question. No. Instead, she had a gap. She was re-reading her textbook and calling it studying because no one had ever told her that re-reading is one of the least effective study strategies we know of. Powerful questions can't surface knowledge that isn't there yet.
The Anti-Boring Toolkit is explicit about this: sometimes students need to be taught something before they can reflect on it. The coaching move isn't to withhold the tool in the name of autonomy — it's to offer it in a way that puts the student in charge of using it.
This is what I call the Anti-Boring Invitation. How do we:
offer students the right tool (science + strategies that actually work)?
at the right time (when the student is most ready to use it)?
using the right move (how to introduce it so it actually lands)?
The alternative to this first misconception is to practice coaching moves designed to draw out student motivation to learn something new, even something effortful.
What are those moves? Good question!! We’ll be sharing five of my favorites at an upcoming FREE webinar: Meh to Motivated. Come ready to learn (or be reminded of) these five anti-boring moves, along with a brand new rubric to help you see where you are on the trajectory of beginner to genius with each one.
As one Lab member reflected: "Once I blended my formal ICF training with a teaching-with-consent approach, my students expressed eagerness to learn new skills. It was so satisfying to see.”
Misconception #2: "There's Not Enough Time to Teach the Extra Stuff"
Ugh. Time. There’s never enough time to teach students all the things they need to learn before the school year is up.
On the one hand that’s so true. And on the other hand? Not at all.
I could have panicked when Ananda came to me already so far behind, with just six weeks to turn her abysmal physics grade around.
There wasn't enough time — and also, there kind of was. Ananda was a motivated student. Two F's had dented her self-esteem, but she wanted to shift. Not every student comes in with that. During our intake session, I immediately saw that she was primed for turbo-learning.
Remember above, when I talked about introducing the right tool at the right time using the right moves?!
In the Lab, we have the Anti-Boring Toolkit — what I consider the right tools for getting students into effective action. We have our Anti-Boring Coaching Moves (the ones I’ll be teaching about in the free webinar), which cover how to introduce those tools so that students will actually listen.
Which leaves the art of discerning the right moment for each tool. That's genuinely hard. But one thing is certain: it's less about "there's not enough time" and more about "how do we harness the time we do have?"
With Ananda, even inside that brutal six-week window, the work became: how do we change what she does with the hours she already has?
I'm still a little amazed by how many Anti-Boring tools she learned and practiced in that time:
Hone-it notes condensed to one page
Spaced retrieval with smartly-written flashcards
Sketchnoting and pictograms for physics concepts
Backwards planning from the final exam date
Reading summaries before full chapters
Pre-quizzing herself before the textbook, not after
And voilà: a 90 on the final.
At the end of the semester, I asked her to reflect on what had made the difference. The answer:
"I understood how to teach myself for that class — a little bit late in the game."
Not "I worked harder." Not "you saved me." Instead: “I learned to teach myself.” In six weeks.
Most students study wrong. Here's what the research actually says.
Our free "Science of Studying" guide is waiting for you in the library.
Check Out Our Free Library →Misconception #3: "If I Explain It Thoroughly Enough, They'll Get It"
Time for our last misconception. This is one I held onto for a long time in my own coaching career (it’s a hard habit to break!!) — the idea that if I just use enough words to explain the science, or break down the tool carefully enough, the student will eventually get it.
It comes from a genuinely good place. We explain because we care. We add more words because we want it to land. We circle back because — what if they missed it the first time?
A tutor working from this belief with Ananda might have spent a good chunk of every session walking her through the physics concepts in greater detail.
An executive function coach working from this belief might have spent session after session carefully unpacking where her time management and planning breakdowns were, and coming up with creative new strategies.
Even a study skills coach functioning with this misconception might explain all the heady science behind why retrieval practice, dual coding, and deliberate practice are the best strategies to use.
And Ananda, being a conscientious student, would have nodded along. Maybe taken notes. Maybe felt temporarily more confident.
Then gone home and re-read her textbook. Again.
Here's a data point worth sitting with: John Hattie's research found that teachers talk for 70 to 89 percent of class time — and student attention dropped most during those stretches.
Coaching isn't a classroom. But if you've ever caught yourself mid-explanation thinking "I've been monologuing for a while now" — you know this pattern shows up in one-on-one sessions, too.
At the end of the semester, when I asked Ananda what had actually changed in her approach, she reflected:
"I can't just read a textbook and take notes one time. Even reading a textbook, I need to find ways to read it in an engaging manner."
She wasn't describing a motivation problem. She was describing a method problem. And she arrived at that insight herself — not because someone explained it to her at length, but because we worked through it together using highly visual, interactive mini-lectures, hands-on practice, and tools she could immediately try on her own material. I talked less. She did more. And the understanding stuck.
That's the move. Not explaining the science of learning while a student nods along — but introducing it in a way that puts the student inside the experience of learning differently.
Here’s the irony that ties these last two misconceptions together: we often tell ourselves there’s no time — and then we spend half the session talking at our students instead of helping them experience the strategies in action.
There's a better way — what I call the Anti-Boring “coaching moves” — and we'll break them down together on May 16 at the free Meh to Motivated workshop. Please join us!!
The Bigger Breakthrough
Remember when I said something shifted in Ananda that was bigger than any grade?
By the end of her next semester, she was different. She had a planner she'd named Pinky. She'd bought a whiteboard. She got a B in mammalogy — a subject she actually enjoyed. And she said, in that way students sometimes do when things have finally clicked: "My life is lowkey. It's kinda nice."
That's it. That's the breakthrough.
Not the 90 on the physics final — though that was pretty great. The success of turning her grade around jumpstarted a cascade of more successes the following semester. She became a student running her own systems, in a subject she loved, with enough breathing room to notice that her life felt manageable.
That's what student agency looks like when a coach is willing to teach in a way that lets a student not just learn the tools, but internalize them.
In my notes from her final semester, I captured something she said that I wish I could hand to every struggling student:
"What works for me might not work for other people. If you don't take the time to learn how to learn, it's not going to work out for you no matter what tools you try."
A college student, in her own words, articulating the entire premise of the Anti-Boring Toolkit.
You’re Invited
If any of this resonates, we'd love to have you at Meh to Motivated on May 16 — a free webinar for academic and executive function coaches, as well as classroom teachers who want to build a “coach approach” in their teaching practice.
We'll walk through:
five coaching moves that help you choose the right tool, at the right time, and share it in the right way. I'd bet you already do some of these naturally.
We'll also share a self-assessment rubric so you can see what you're already strong at — and where you'd like to grow heading into next year.
It's a good moment to reflect before we all disappear into summer. We hope you'll join us. Reserve your spot by clicking here.
And if you want to learn more about “the right tools” that I taught Ananda, we’ve got a free library in the Visitor’s center that will give you an intro to our “greatest hits.”
Your Turn
Have any of othese misconceptions shown up in your work with students? Are you brave enough to share more with us? I’d love to hear which of these three beliefs has shown up the most in yourself, or coaches you’ve worked alongside? Drop it in the comments. These are the conversations that sharpen all of us.