David Van Story

building the future of education

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@lennysan Gotta include:
- Book of Elon
- The Almanac of Naval Ravikant
- The Beginning of Infinity

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@jackfriks @marclou Hey Jack - really like your work. Can you share the 2-3 books that were most impactful in your solopreneur journey. You mentioned:

"reading some pivotal books years before like the almanack of @naval ravikant and fastlane millionaire by @MJDeMarco" ..are these the ones?

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@jxnlco I just found it - you've already got it! sweet.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

a little selectable part of the app when codex spawns subagents so you can easily click the agent name and you can check on their progress and toggle through your multiple agents. would be v helpful for when you've got multiple agents working and I want to see how they are progressing. removes the "blackbox" feeling of the work and builds trust in their ability/approach.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

hey Jason, it would be awesome if codex had a really easy way to give the agent access to multiple repos as context. like workspaces in vs code, or the "add another folder" button in the Claude Code app.

super useful if there are conventions/files/features that exist in repo A that you want the agent to implement in repo B.

thanks! love the product

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@YourPrimePath As naval says “become the best in the world at what you do. keep redefining what that is until this is true.”

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@PathOfMen_ As @naval says “become the best in the world at what you do. keep redefining what you do until this is true”

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@Jason This is exactly what my company, @CrushAPexams, is doing for Physics

The future of education is bright!

The trickiest engineering problem for a teacherless learning app is designing really intuitive instruction.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@PSkinnerTech @gauntletai Yo! Good times!
Ai for floorplans and space layouts is legit

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

One of the biggest issues with students using digital tech to learn is that they don't write.

The Scribble team are on to something big!

[Mitch Forest - edu/acc @MitchForest]

Scribble is live for @AlphaSchoolATX. Families and schools can join our waitlist at:

https://t.co/2D3A9pnxMC

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@griswold @FlankaLanka1 @AlphaSchoolATX awesome suggestions - feedback taken! thank @griswold
we'll make a new version with these points baked in 🙏

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

Thanks for responding Matt!
I agree with you, there has to be a clear link between the knowledge point being instructed, and the game itself.

what is not shown here, is that this game is a part of a larger lesson where the concepts of distance and displacement are directly instructed with text and other generative questions. this is just a 10s snippet of that broader lesson.

the insight that almost every physics curriculum misses the mark on is that physics should be taught via animations and interactions that are familiar to learner. my point is that dual coding with text AND interactives like this one is the most efficient way to learn these concepts.

I am on the same page as you about creating great game based physics curricula - we are just getting started!

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

In one month, only 10% of kids will score 5s on the AP Physics 1 exam.

How do I know?

The big mistake is that teachers teach the curriculum, but not the test.

We've decoded the test. Boiled it down to the 11 key question types and 8 key skills. Simple.

If you/you're kid is feeling screwed check out https://t.co/vy7qyz69tS to get unscrewed.

Bonus: Here are 7 hacks to avoid the traps of the exam
@CrushAPexams

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

Feeling screwed for the AP physics 1 exam? We’ve got just the thing.

[Kanishk Jain @kanishksj01]

Since September, I have been putting incredible effort into building @CrushAPexams. The Crush AP mission is to be the best tool students can use to prepare for their AP exams. We are starting with AP Physics I.

For the last six months, we have worked with a cohort of students at Alpha High School to test the product. The students are all on track to earn a 5 this May. The team is excited, and we are grateful to have been able to build this.

Building Crush AP is about creating a sustainable business. Early on, we did not want the pursuit of profit to detract from building a great product, so we didn’t focus much on selling.

More recently, we started posting more on the Crush AP X account. Last week, we even got our first paying customer.

Reflecting this weekend, we realized demand is highest now due to the impending exam date. We would regret not acting on this moment and telling the world that Crush AP is available.

So, Crush AP is now $100 for the next month, and our mission is to see how many students we can help get 5s on their AP Physics I exam. Crush AP has a few core features that will get students there.

The first core feature is targeted practice, where students can answer AP-style questions spanning all eight units. If a question is answered incorrectly, students have the opportunity to chat with an AI to understand where they went wrong.

The next core feature is drills. In the process of becoming experts in AP Physics, we realized the exam tests a series of core skills: equation identification, free-body diagram creation, proportional analysis, deriving equations, and graph creation.

For each of these skills, we created a dedicated drill mode in our application where students can ensure their gaps are covered.

In both drills and targeted practice, students have access to a tailored AI chatbot that tutors them on the problem they are working on. We worked with an AP exam specialist to fine-tune the chat experience, and it has been trained to teach the way the specialist teaches his clients.

We know 1:1 tutoring is not fully solved yet, but our in-app chat experience feels close.

Crush AP contains every question type that appears on the AP exam, from derivations to ratio reasoning to graph analysis. Using our expertise in exam specifics, we built an automated multi-agent system to generate AP exam questions, so students will never run out of practice material.

There is currently no other way to get a tailored, exam-specific training experience like this. If a student is feeling stressed about their exam in May, I would not hesitate to recommend Crush AP to help them score a 5.

I will tap into my network to find students taking the exam in May. If you are reading this and know anyone planning to take the AP Physics I exam, we would really appreciate it if you could let them know about Crush AP.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

We're doing the same, but for Physics.

@CrushAPexams for Alpha School students @AlphaSchoolATX

[Ben Somers @ben_m_somers]

We are very quietly building a multi-disciplinary skill-tree for kids

will link their favorite video games to their academics, amongst other things

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

If you’re prepping for the exam rn, or your kid wants to get a 5 on AP Physics 1 - get in touch

[Superbuilders @Superbuilders]

The Crush AP team has set an extremely high bar for themselves, and they're most definitely delivering.

Crush AP will soon be the standard for making sure students score 5s on their AP exams.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

@agivacuum Thanks @agivacuum! Many more features to share over the coming weeks!

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

Little snippet from one of our Physics lessons on https://t.co/tHTrvQThdn

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

We apply the same framework @jliemandt describes here to the Physics engine we’ve built - establish the facts first (DOK 1, 2) e.g. “a vector is….”

…then scaffold more complex concepts and insights (DOK 3,4) e.g. “use vectors to model this system…”

Combine with spaced review, mastery gates, and an AI grader to check all the students work and you’ve got yourself a lean mean learning machine.

[liemandt @jliemandt]

We use Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) framework.

Our comprehensive program moves students from DOK 1/2 (traditional facts and simple summaries typical of standardized tests) to DOK 3/4 (advanced reasoning).

AlphaWrite is one of the most effective tools we use for this. Writing is thinking.

[David Van Story @DaveVanStory]

The current challenge we're on the cusp of solving for the students using our physics app at @AlphaSchoolATX is generating endless AP MCQ and FRQ questions.

This is going to be a huge unlock for exam prep.