An interview with Nancy Weinstein, Founder & CEO of Mindprint Learning
What traction do you have so far?
Mindprint works with over 200 schools, including public, private, charter and districts as well as independent tutors.
What is the story and inspiration behind starting Mindprint?
Mindprint evolved from my own experiences as a parent. My daughters were doing well in school but let’s just say that after they started getting homework, it became abundantly clear that their minds worked very differently from mine. If I wanted to support them, I realized that I needed to adapt to their thinking. Like many who aren’t teachers, this just didn’t come naturally to me. When I asked about existing measures to assess HOW they processed and learned, I was told my only option was a multi-thousand dollar assessment with a child psychologist. I literally said “there’s got to be a better way” and then I set out to create it. And here we are.
What is the unmet market need or challenge that Mindprint is addressing?
I started reading and learning about educational evaluations that identify how students learn. One of the things I discovered was that these tests were really expensive, time intensive, and only available from a child psychologist. It made me question why, in this age of the Internet, this was the only way we could understand how our kids learn. I decided that we could do this testing for each child and it wouldn’t need to be that expensive or time-consuming.
How does your company solve the proposed problem and why you’re the team to solve this problem?
So we are now in schools helping educators understand how each student learns best. If I had known that my reasoning skills are good but my memory is not as good, I could have learned strategies so I could memorize more easily. I probably would have become a doctor. Imagine how school would have been for me and how much more I could have enjoyed it. We want to do that for every kid.
When kids see their learner profile, they feel that finally they are understood. We hear students say, “This is me. Nobody understood me before.” Everybody needs to be understood at the most fundamental level. We use that understanding to create self-awareness. When students are self-aware, then they can really learn. We can’t expect students to regulate and be in control of their learning if they don’t know how/what strengths they can use and where they might need to compensate. Just like tennis players.
Why are you participating in the LearnLaunch Accelerator? Why did you choose this program?
The team at LearnLaunch is the key draw. The experience and dedication to making edtech companies successful is what makes LearnLaunch unique. The opportunity to be part of the inaugural cohort with ETS was the reason we chose this particular time to apply to LearnLaunch. That ETS is located near us in Princeton is only icing on the cake.
