What to expect in your first coaching session:

  • Your first coaching session will involve a strengths assessment. Depending on your needs, we may use the LASSI (Learning and Study Strategies Inventory), QED Learner Sketch Tool, an executive function questionnaire, or VIA (Values-In-Action) Character Strengths Survey to help uncover your areas of strength and pinpoint the areas you most want to work on.

  • We draw from Warren Berger’s work in A More Beautiful Question to frame our goal setting process. This framework, along with pulling elements of WOOP and SMART goals, allows us to celebrate short-term success while creating long-term habits.

  • You’ll leave your first session with a solid goal, and we’ll go over evidenced based strategies in each subsequent session. Retrieval practice, dual-coding, and distributive practice make a difference for those enrolled in a formal school setting AND for those in the workplace. To learn more about our strategies visit our resource page.

Our Approach:

Our coaches use motivational interviewing principles grounded in the principles of self-determination theory while offering you evidenced-based strategies. We promise to be curious about your challenges and will ask what has- and what hasn't- worked for you in the past. Together, we'll talk about approaches that both research and others in similar situations have used to find success. Our goal is to help you identity and develop your own academic strengths.

“To foster conditions that widen the horizon of others and give them command of their own powers, so that they can find their own happiness in their own fashion, is the way of 'social ' action.”

— John Dewey

Strategies may include..

  • Organization of Materials

    It’s frustrating to spend time looking for what you need to get started on a project. We offer both physical and digital strategies to help you organize your materials so that you can get to work more quickly and spend more time on the tasks that matter most.

  • Time Management

    A traditional planner system doesn’t work for everyone. We work alongside you to understand how long tasks are taking you. We will offer strategies to help you remember to meet deadlines, space out your studying, and turn in completed work on time. We also work with many clients on overcoming procrastination by helping you recognize the way your brain “rewards” your current avoidance.

  • Organization of Information and Study Skills

    Neuroscience now tells us that our traditional methods of highlighting the book and rereading our notes really isn’t the best way to retain information. We’ll offer retrieval strategies that ensure you can perform at your best on tests and quizzes.

FAQs

Does The Studio diagnose learning differences?

The Studio does not provide educational evaluations nor do we diagnosis anyone with ADHD, ASD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia or Dysgraphia. However, The Studio can work with individuals to develop self-advocacy skills needed to better understand their diagnosis and disability rights.

What makes academic coaching at The Studio different from traditional tutoring?

While traditional tutoring takes on the approach of an “expert” and “learner,” The Studio is collaborative as we employ many non-directive coaching and motivational interviewing techniques to help uncover strengths. A traditional math tutor may dive deeply into the topics of how to graph nonlinear equations, the academic coach instead works to help the student understand what they do and do not know so that they can ask better questions and advocate for their needs in the school environment.