You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, Bloom's Taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. In the next hour, you're going to hear about how a burned-out high school teacher went from making less than her student loan payments to building a platform that has helped over 7 million students pass AP exams and nearly double the national average. And she did it by breaking every rule in the EdTech playbook. That's what we're covering today. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college prep without wasting thousands of dollars and years of time. And the answer usually involves finding the people who have figured out the rules of the game and that the schools aren't telling you. That's why I'm thrilled to have Amanda Duamarl. Did I say that right? Do Amaral? Almost. Doe Amaral. Don't Amaral. Is that right? It's close enough. It happens. I apologize here today. Amanda is a co-founder and the CEO of Fivable. And if your kid is ever crammed for an AP exam, there's a good chance they have used her platform or they've been on it. We're going to dive into how she built the largest social learning community for AP prep students in the country and what parents need to know about AP prep in 2026. Amanda, welcome to the show. I apologize. I apologize. I should have practiced before we went live. I'm sorry. The reset and the Wi-Fi threw me off. I apologize. So Amanda, I'm happy to say I'm a subscriber to Fivable because I've got I've used some of your resources. Because uh over here, we I've kind of built this company all based around AP exam prep. It's taken off from there. So yeah. So yeah, the name, way to go on getting that handle and fiveable. So you've I've given them the highlight reel. Take us back to how you started education and went to basically this massive platform. Yeah, it's uh it's quite an origin story. I went to college for education. I ended up like majoring in in education and then ended up doing Teach for America right after, and that's what kind of got into the classroom, sort of behind enemy lines, if you will. And I loved teaching. I taught for five years. I taught AP classes in Oakland. There was just so much about it that I really just absolutely loved and couldn't see myself doing forever, but ultimately the teaching at a school and being the the school I was at was just I was just getting kind of burnt out just from the adults, like to be perfectly honest. And so after that, I I didn't really know what I was gonna do next. But so I kind of left and traveled for a bit. And by the time that the new like the next AP season was rolling around, I just kept thinking about like, okay, I have all this AP knowledge. I spent so many years like really figuring out AP world history, AP human geography. How can I share this information with more students or even my former students who were now taking AP US history? And so I basically like moved back home. I moved back in with my mom and just started building content that could support students. I emailed all my own former students, I showed up in Discord channels and on Reddit and just started like pulling in a community. And from there, it really was about, you know, just sort of making sure that like we were doing everything we could to support as many students as we could and and adapting. Like we went through this all started pre-COVID, you know, like we went through COVID, we went through this AI era, like so many things have changed since then. And so it's just really all been about how do we create the best platform we can to support as many students as we can. And that ultimately became kind of like how I was able to have my own class, like a bigger version of my own classroom, essentially. It's like I have all these students now, and that's kind of the best job ever. Yeah. So I mean, just so you're you have a you're co-founder, so you have a partner. What how did you guys meet? How did you get together to figure out like we're gonna we're gonna do this? And just completely leaves the classroom. Yeah, I so I honestly would would probably consider myself more of a solo founder, but um I did have other like early partners in the beginning, and ultimately, like I kind of found everybody in a in a also a really unique way. I was at a time, this was back in 2018, where I was 28. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I didn't know where I wanted to live, like I felt priced out of the big cities. I felt like I have a lot of motivation and energy and like give me a project to like sink into and I'm gonna have some fun. But I just didn't know like I needed direction. And I I kind of just like felt like I bet other people feel the same way. They are really looking for meaningful work, and so I sort of put this like at the time I didn't have any like funding, I didn't have any anything to give really, other than, or I guess we had like some small funding from an accelerator at that point, but I did I knew I wasn't gonna compete on you know, on salaries at that time, and so I just I wrote a blog post about myself and what I wanted to do, what I cared about, and I sort of put out a call like on just like wherever I could for people who were looking for something meaningful to work on. And that's how I met the earliest team, the the few people that kind of joined, which I know segues into the next chapter of the Fiveable House, but I essentially sort of convinced a couple of people to move into a house that I rented in Philly, and we just like got to work. It kind of, I think my assumption that other people felt the same way I did was right. And they were people who were kind of like around my age in between jobs, in between careers, but were like learning a lot fast and wanting to build and wanting to like be around like-minded people. And if I could pay the rent and like we could all share equity and like eventually get to pay ourselves like actual salaries, that was a really like good plan for all of us, and so that's that's basically how we all like kind of started. So it really was bootstrapping and just from the ground up construction on this and just the belief that this is gonna work out, and you made that leap to jump leaving the classroom to do this, right? What did yeah, what what did family play think about? I don't even know. I even think back now and think like there was a certain, I don't know, I guess like naivety that I had that I I miss, you know what I mean? Like before you know like the risks you're willing to take. And so I had already left the classroom, so I was out of the classroom and bopping around, like trying to figure out what to do. And I think I just felt like I understood the privileges I had. You know, I had a family that was willing to support me, and I felt like I could give it a real shot and sort of like see what would happen. And I just knew that I don't know, like I had support systems, I had safety nets. And so I I think I just like took advantage of that moment and said, like, let me let me see what can happen. Something else that really stuck with me too was I I I really reflected on like what it was like teaching and what it was like working on. I had worked on like a political campaign in between and just all these other places. And I felt like while I am always someone who gives everything to the work that I do, I also know that there's always a part of me that holds back when you're in a space where you're working for somebody else. You're you're building, you're working at, you know, in this other system. You're you're gonna protect yourself, you know, like you you sort of need to do that. That's part of like how we all work. And I sort of I remember thinking, like, I wonder though, what I would look like at a hundred percent. Like, what would it actually look like if I just went all in and was like fully vulnerable towards this? And if it fails, it fails, but it won't be because I didn't try, you know? And so that was a big kind of mindset shift that I think really like made this all happen because it just allowed me to like give it everything I had and like really like figure out what I don't know, figure out how to learn it, like get the right people, make a bunch of mistakes, but you just sort of go for it. You like all my walls were down, you know. Well, then something crazy happened and puts you on the map. You were at a college board event and you got into it with Trevor Backer, the head of AP program, on cutting AP world curriculum to start at 1450. And that video actually went viral. MPR covered it, the Atlantic covered it. What was going through your head at that moment? I honestly, I mean, I was still so much in the AP world at or the literally the AP like universe at that time as a teacher, and AP world history like was such an important class to teach because I really did get to learn so much about the world that I felt like no one had taught me before. And for my students, it meant everything, like it really did, and it changed how all of us like looked at current events, even you know, and like all the pieces of understanding history. And when that change happened, it just really it felt it just it felt personal, like it felt like these are decisions that are happening, you know, in a room somewhere. And when you think about College Board, it's a huge organization, it has a lot of influence and power in this country, especially, but it's not an elected space, it's not, you know, like who decides those things. And so I think it was just a very frustrating moment where it was like these decisions are gonna happen and they're gonna impact not even just AP classes, they're gonna impact world history classes everywhere because there's a real like trickle-down issue here where like what AP does is becomes the like shining standard, and so I felt really strongly that it was worth speaking up. And I was just I was speaking at an event where they were allowed, like it was an open forum, and so I just got in line with there were many other teachers that spoke out, and I don't know why. I like I mean, I can maybe guess, but I don't I really Trevor Packer just kind of had a I don't know. I I he kind of just like changed his tune a little bit as I was speaking, and so I I think that that then quickly turned into a little bit more of a battle, and obviously it's like filmed, and at the time, like I wasn't scared of posting that. Like many teachers are like, you know, get nervous. Obviously, you work at a school district, you don't know how this is gonna reflect on everything. I just didn't have those pieces, and so I posted it everywhere, and in in in like in the fight, you know, like I was like, I really felt like we could like affect this decision. And at the in the end, like we did actually affect it. We were able to get 200 years of history back, which wasn't what all we wanted. 250, 250, 12, 1200. Sorry. Well, we start. That's yeah, but you know, it's something. Yeah, so I just felt like it, you know, I just I needed to be loud about that. So, you know, it wasn't really about fiveable in that moment, but um, that did get you on the radar though. Sure, yeah. I mean, obviously there was a lot of press then, and like it it all just kind of happened at the same time. But no, like being at that open forum and and being in that fight was really about it was about world history. Like I I just I'm just kind of a history nerd. Like I just loved this stuff, and I loved getting to teach students this and just to think about like all the I don't know, just so much vibrant history that was not going to be included because it's not gonna be on the test. I just someone had to do something, and so I did what I could. Fiveable's big idea is social learning that students can learn from each other, not just from a teacher or a textbook. You call it social accountability. Like, explain that to a parent who's never heard of that before or how it all works. Yeah, I um I guess like sorry, I'm just gonna ask you a question here. Are you able to like cut things here or no? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We'll cut what what do you want to cut? Yeah, we're not, we're not, we're not live live. Yeah. I uh we don't really I I have reasons why we really started with social learning and why we've like pulled away from that. Okay, but the current product really isn't anymore. Well, this is my Oppo research from my team, so no problem. We we can cut that. Wanna move on to a different question? Yeah, that's probably fine. Um all right. So basically, you know, you started fiveable, it's grown, it's it's morphed, and now you've launched an AI-powered FRQ scoring tool in January. So a student writes a response, submits it, gets scored against the actual college rubric, the different structural components of the FRQ. Walk me through how that works and why it matters. Yeah. So I guess to give a little bit of background, like when we first started, we spent years, six plus years creating study guides, practice questions, content. A lot of that content was like live streamed videos, but a lot of it was just like generated content by students and teachers. And so much of what we wanted to do was bring in, um, bring in the student voice in that, but like really just, I mean, I knew from teaching, like, you gotta just make the content accessible, you know, you gotta like break this down. Like, what do I actually need to know? Like, just tell me, tell me what I need to know. You know, and like I I so I think a lot of our content is really focused on that. And since AI has has, you know, especially in this last few months, even like the the way that the models work now, it has actually unlocked the ability to grade things in a way that we just couldn't before. It would have been very difficult to have like human graders doing it. And so I knew that for many years, like writing was something that we were not adequately covering, right? Like we were doing a lot with like building understanding and like building comprehension, but the writing piece was something that was very difficult to build in a way that I that I would like really trust. We, my team, we are very like experimenters, like I'm always testing new things, and especially like with AI, like building a lot of things with it. And I was basically like able to some of the new models and some of the other things that we had built, like things started to unlock. And what I was able to do was build a grading pipeline that really understands the AP exam, understands the rubric and all the pieces and all the context, and essentially give students and teachers a way to use that AI that already has all their context so that they don't have to set it up, you know, they don't have to tune it. We can do that. It's a standardized thing. And so making sure that that is accurate is like a huge piece of this. And I was able to like benchmark this against a couple years of released sample essays and essentially get within half a point of the actual AP readers. So as a former AP reader myself, I was like, this is kind of awesome. Like, you know, I used to grade 200 essays a month, and that it's it's a lot on teachers. It's a it's not always fun, and you know you can't give as much feedback as you want. And so I just really wanted a way for students to be able to practice writing and get really good feedback on each rubric point and not have to rely on a teacher or on anyone else, which at its core is kind of what Five Wool is wants to do. Like, I don't want the students to have to rely on other outside factors, and then also it allows teachers to grade things in bulk so that they can do the same thing, they can give more essays in class or just give more feedback. So that's been a really exciting, like, new feature that you've been getting really good feedback on. It's just like it's just hitting on a really important skill. Right. Well, um, with especially with history of 60% of it being so important of those of those writing scores, um, you can really make or break a grade. So your results have been incredible, taking kids up to a 92-95% pass rate. Tell me, like, what is that? How does that feel having come from from the classroom to making such an impact nationally of getting those pass rates to where they're at? This episode is brought to you by supported tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focused on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves it It's like I'm someone who like doesn't care about the scores. Right. And that so that's gonna like go against this a little bit, but it's like the reason why I don't care about the scores is because I feel like the the real benefit of AP classes is being in that rigorous space and knowing that you are allowed to be there. That alone is such an important shift for a student because oftentimes, and myself included, like it feels like a gate-kept space. You know, you have to meet certain standards, someone has to ask you to be in there. It's easy to feel like you're not enough, that you're not, I'm not smart enough to be in there. So just being in the class and knowing like you can absolutely do this, why not? Like you should take academic risks and you're allowed to do this. You you should do this. That is a is a massive confidence boost on a student that will change everything about how they think about college and just like future learning opportunities. The scores are like the cherry on top, in my opinion. Because, like, obviously, the the students care about the scores, the parents care about the scores, like there's college credit involved. But at the end of the day, like the score is just sort of your end of, you know, how much do you know? And that college credit will help you, but also like you may just stay in college for four years, anyways, and you may not actually save anything from it. So that's why I sort of like value the scores maybe second, but being able to at least use the scores as a way to show that what we do is um there there is like a lot of efficacy here, like it is working is a very exciting thing because just being able to ask students every year, like, okay, well, gathering up thousands of scores and figuring out what the trends are, and and to be honest, it's like I'm I am also someone who's like I'm constantly like interrogating that data and trying to figure out like, okay, but what did we do to make that difference? And in doing that, I think what I've learned is like the difference is that this is honestly confidence-based, and it's about students knowing that they have the right resources, that they're studying the right things, that they are doing their best, and like having the confidence to go into exam day, feeling like I've got this. All of that sort of builds towards a better score. And it it's it's been like pretty clear year after year after year that that is the case. And last year we even like went even more specific with income, race, and ethnicity identifications, like gender, asking students for a little bit more data. And what we found is that the like traditionally under-resourced students had the biggest jumps. And I think it just goes back to the same thing. It's just like we needed to be someone in their life that really like told them that they can. And like I think that that's something that they really got from five bowl. So you're offering a completely different model than traditional like high-cost tutoring systems. But for parents out there just looking and they're panicking because AP exams are less than six weeks away, yeah. What do most families get wrong about AP prep? Yeah. I mean, I think APs are especially like the hardest AP is your first one, right? So for a parent who's of a first AP time student, like the the challenge is that you don't know what to expect. And I think a lot of times it's like this feeling of like I want to give them everything that they can, right? And that can be a very challenging place for a student because then they can get almost too much, too overwhelmed. But ultimately, like the way that we go about things is is a very student first place. My honest like opinion is like these are high school students, these are teenagers, they have to be independent in this process as much as possible. Because, like I said, it's not just about their scores. It's about building up their confidence to for them to understand what they can do. And so I know that students are studying on their computers, on their phones, like late at night, wherever they can. Being the type of resource where we can kind of alleviate the fears of like, don't worry about whether or not you are studying the right thing. You are in the right place. You are studying the right thing. If you spend time on here, you will do better because you don't have to worry about trying to figure out what or how to study. Like, let's just like eliminate those things and just help the student just focus and work through the different, you know, study guides, practice questions, get feedback, and start to build up for themselves an understanding of where they're strongest and where they need to do more work. Like that is a really important step for the student that when they sort of cross that, it can help their scores more than anything. And so I mean, I guess I would just say like, give your student as much independence as they can in this. And using a tool like Fiverrable gives everybody more confidence in that process. So what about a parent that had their kid has three or four AP exams? And what where do they start? What should they do? I mean, honestly, same thing. Like a student who's taking three or four AP exams at that point is it's probably their second or third year taking APs. They kind of know how to balance it all. During the school year, it's a lot, right? You're you're taking these classes, however many you're taking at the same time, you're juggling all the homework and assignments and trying to just stay on top of things. I think a big part of it is trying to help your student build habits along the way. How are you previewing the material? How are you reviewing the material? How like how do you do little bits throughout the year so that you're not waiting for everything? And then as it gets closer to exams, it's about it's really about prioritizing. Like you're not gonna be able to sit down and memorize an entire course in a couple weeks, but you can focus in on where do you actually need to learn more? And that is gonna be different for every student. And that's that's why I really like advocate for a student-led studying system, because it's like, okay, you're taking four APs, you're you're probably also in you know, three extracurriculars and you have four other classes and maybe a job and you're in sports, like you also have all this stuff going on. And so it's so much about prioritizing your time and like building out just like a schedule. Like I used to do this with my students, just like take a blank paper and like literally just schedule out their time, help them schedule out their time so they understand like Tuesdays you can't get any work done, you're not gonna get home until 9 p.m. So let's build around that. Let's make sure then that we're doing a block of time on Mondays or a block, you know, whatever, and be helping the student make sense of how much they have to do and how to prioritize that. That's the skill, you know, like even in work, like we all do that. And so getting the student to really be able to do that will help them make it through all those exams. Before I get to lightning round here, I do want to ask you about the um the biggest thing that parents get wrong about AP, or that the one thing that parents are not aware of their AP exams, because I think you and I work with a lot of similar students with a lot of different family backgrounds, and they just hear AP is tough and competitive, but there's a lot of things that our parents don't know about AP. What is probably the most important thing that they should know, but they don't? I would say, I mean, I'd try to say a couple things. One is just that literally any student can do this. Like AP is a very, yes, it's a lot of content, but it's also very well documented. You know, it's a standardized class. It's a there is clarity in like what you need to know. And whether your student has struggled in the past, has aced everything in the past, AP is gonna challenge them. It's gonna shake things up. Like they're gonna hit moments where they're like, maybe I can't write. Maybe I can't, like, I'm not. It's gonna force you to like rethink these like reading, writing, like thinking skills. And it's just it's really about helping the parent understand that first of all, that struggle is where learning happens. It is worth it to struggle in the AP class in order to learn those skills, to like hit those really hard moments. That's where learning happens. And to I would also say, like, a couple other pieces is like self-studying is something that I don't think is taken up on a lot. You can take any AP exam without taking the class. Obviously, that's a high bar. You know, like, do you have enough guidance to do that? We've really tried to make a fiveable cover everything such that a student could do that. But that sort of leans into the like, you know, obviously you want to like trust that your school is supporting your students as much as they can, but the reality is not every subject is offered at every school. But your student can take any AP subject, it's all like allowed. And then I think the third thing I would say is just that despite all of that, I wouldn't necessarily say that AP is a like end all be all of education. You know, it's it's also like gets a lot of hype and there's a lot of reasons to take it, but there's also reasons not to. Like if your student is, like I said, super busy this year, has got a lot of stuff going on, like it is okay to say, you know what, I'm actually not gonna take this AP class, even though I feel like I should. Because at the end of the day, like if it's gonna hurt you in terms of your confidence level, then is it worth it? You know? And so I just think it's about like it's really about protecting the these young people's confidence levels. Like, how do you make sure that they graduate high school feeling good about themselves, you know, like in many ways, but in an academic sense of like, I'm not burnt out, you know, burnt out 18-year-olds is not a is not great for anybody. So yeah, so true. I mean, there's we've had kids take seven or eight APs, and I think it's just incredibly unhealthy that they're doing. Yeah, it's a lot. Like, it's probably better to like again, like prioritize which ones do you actually want to take? Which college credit do you want to get before you get to college so you don't have to take that class? You know, like it's not the only way to compete for college. Obviously, it's one way, but I just think that ultimately, like a well-rounded student that's excited and curious about the world leaving high school, like that's the goal. And like, I think just making sure we don't lose sight of that. All right, let's move into the lightning round as we we round wind this down. You ready for it? Just straight answers. You don't you don't have to think about, you don't have to explain, but you can if you want to. If I don't have an answer, should I skip? You should be able to. All right. Cool. Uh, one book every parent of a high schooler should read. I rarely read books. Worst advice you hear people giving about AP exams right now. Uh I would say just like trying to do too much in too little time, like being someone that can just like try to memorize everything, I think that is just not a good idea. One thing parents overthink about AP prep the amount that they need to be involved. I like put it on the student give the student the responsibility of it. If you could go back and tell yourself one thing when you were still in a classroom, what would it be? There's so much that you get to learn out there. Like your runway of learning is never ending in all these different fields, and like I don't know, there's so much more. Most overrated metric in college emissions. Uh I mean probably any of the standardized tests, although GPA is honestly kind of a weird one because it's so subjective at every school. Just generally, like any way that we it's very difficult to like assess students. So I do not envy college admissions. Folks, sounds hard. This is this has been great, Amanda. I really do appreciate your time coming on. It's awesome to meet someone who's built such an amazing platform and something that I still use to this day. So for families who want to know more about Fivable or about your background, what where should they where should they go? Yeah, um, you can visit our website at fiveable.me. We're at that domain because thefable.com exists somewhere else. So, but come check out the site, you know, bounce around and see what what's up, and feel free to reach out to me anytime on either LinkedIn or I can share like an email or something with you. Yeah, no, we'll put all those in the descriptions in the YouTube too. So, Amanda, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. It was great meeting you. Yeah, you as well. Yeah, thank you all for learning listening to the Supported Learning Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.