About Mink’ED Copy

Andy Mink, Founder & Owner, Mink’ED

Andy assembles and leads teams of experts from all aspects of education innovation through project design, implementation, and evaluation.

He believes in the power of the Liquid Network, a hub of creativity and conversation that can address the unmet needs and gaps in education.

He is influenced by the work of Kurt Hahn and employs an experiential approach to instructional goals, to technology integration, and, above all else, teacher leadership capacity.

He values opportunities to connect classrooms globally, and international education partnerships have been successfully implemented in France, England, Belgium, and Barbados.

He taught eighth grade for ten years, and every project – near or far – is influenced by those lessons learned and adventures shared.

Overall, his interests focus on creating new project designs, identifying and organizing the right team of experts and professionals, and producing innovative new resources for the teacher, the classroom, and the student.

Career Highlights & Interactive CV

Andy received degrees in History from the University of Virginia and History and Education from the University of South Carolina.
A public school educator for ten years, he joined the middle school faculty in Orange County, Virginia in 1992. In 1996, he founded and served as director of The Discovery Program, a “school within a school” experiential education and integrated curriculum program for a heterogeneous population. Hands-on methodology, service-learning, work apprenticeships, and over fifty annual outings and workshops defined this experiential and integrated curriculum that stressed academic and character education equally.
From 2002-2010, he served as the Director of Outreach and Education for the Virginia Center for Digital History in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. He led professional development workshops with pre-service, K-12, and university teachers around the country to design, implement, and evaluate learning expeditions that use digitized primary resources in the classroom to create hands-on learning environment within history content standards. In 2010, this position moved to the Curry School of Education at UVA. For a detailed summary of his work history at UVA, click here.
In 2003, the National Society of Experiential Education (NSEE) honored him as the National K-12 Educator of the Year.
From 2012-14, Mink worked as the Executive Director of LEARN NC at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. His work positioned LEARN NC as a hub for project creation that connected instruction, technology, and scholarship to benefit schools, communities and partner organizations. With a dual focus on e-learning initiatives and open education resources, LEARN NC provided authentic connections between research, practitioner, and teacher training. For a detailed summary of his work history at UNC, click here.
Currently sits as a Master Teacher with the Organization of American Historians in their Distinguished Speaker Program.
He was awarded the 2015 Outstanding Support for Geography Education Award by the National Council for Geography Education.
He is registered as a GeoMentor with the Association of American Geographers.
He has been featured in numerous articles and interviews as well as co-authored publications on teaching and learning with an emphasis on experiential education. For a summary of publications and publicity, click here.
He serves on several regional and national Boards of Directors, including North Carolina Council for Social Studies, North Carolina Outward Bound School, and the Walking Classroom Foundation as well as the Board of Trustees for the National Council for History Education.
He was elected as an At-Large candidate for the Board of Directors of the National Council for Social Studies in 2016.