Hey, my name is Ryan and I am creating Investant Academy.

When I was in school, the teachers I appreciated the most were the ones who engaged with me at an individual level. It was rewarding and unexpected when a teacher clearly put thought and effort into what I needed, what Ryan needed. Today I look back and think about the extra blood, sweat, and tears that goes into understanding every individual student's strengths and weaknesses and addressing them personally.

If we look at a handful of students who might be underperforming in Spanish class, "John" might be having issues with past tense verbs while "Julia" struggles with the future tense. "Sarah" might lack a wide vocabulary while "Eric" has trouble with spelling. When it comes time for review before an exam, a teacher might be able to create personalized plans for each of these students, but how does that scale across 5 or 6 full classrooms with multiple grade levels and parts of the curriculum? Most teachers want to do this, but can't. It's not that they don't care but that there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

My vision is to deliver teachers a modern solution for their curriculum and classroom management. From creating lessons, quizzes, and assignments to delivering this curriculum to students to receiving automated analytics about student and class performance, Investant Academy will help every step of the way.

### Giving Teachers Superpowers

I aim to give superpowers to all teachers, from content creation for lessons and assignments to understanding individual student needs and being able to address them in real time. Our lesson module creation tool allows teachers to create both lessons and quiz assessments in a familiar slide-based editor. I will be adding AI auto-generation to this tool to save time by automatically creating lesson and quiz slides. In addition, completed lesson modules will be able to be made public for any other teacher on Investant to browse a library of high quality content.

Investant Academy will provide multiple ways to deliver this content, including:

1) A sleek presentation tool that acts as an interactive slideshow allowing question slides to be weaved into content slides during a live-classroom setting
2) Directly assign content to students who can join the online classroom and complete their assignments
3) Create a Live Quiz where students in class can join and compete to answer questions in real time
4) Send your content to Investant Island, our custom game where we inject your questions seamlessly into the game while students play

As students answer questions and complete your content, you can see how they are doing in real time. We capture student responses and provide automated analytics to teachers about the performance of individual students, classrooms, and the performance of the curriculum itself! I will also be adding support for free response question types with the ability to have AI auto-grade student responses and send it to their teacher for review.

Students have their own dashboard where they can see their progress, upcoming assignments, and engage with the content their teacher has prepared for them.

### Why Investant Academy?

I watched my favorite teachers stay up late grading papers, and I watched them light up when they actually got to *teach*. I remember my teacher calling me out of class one day to hand me a website written down on a piece of paper because he and I had connected about philosophy and he wanted to share more with me. To feel seen and cared for at an individual level by your teacher like that is an extraordinary moment. That's what I'm building towards.

With an online platform like Investant, we can build a network of teachers who can contribute to a public library of high quality class content. Through Investant Academy, we can deliver automated tools at scale to any teacher who wants to do more for their students and reclaim time outside of the classroom.

### Doing What's Right

If I can give teachers back even a few hours a week to actually *teach* instead of drowning in admin work, that's worth it.

Learn more [About Us](https://investant.net/about-us) and feel free to reach out anytime by submitting our [Contact Us](https://investant.net/?modal=contact-us) form or email me directly at ryan@investant.net.

Hey, my name is Ryan and I am creating Investant Academy.

Investant Academy

According to a [RAND Corporation](https://www.rand.org/about.html) survey reported by the National Education Association, teachers work an average of 53 hours a week, with a significant portion of that uncompensated time going to grading outside of school hours. Breakdowns from education researchers estimate that grading alone can consume anywhere from 5 to 15 hours per week depending on the subject and level of feedback provided. 

That time spent grading can make up an entire extra workday! Many teachers signed up for this profession because they have a passion for helping others learn and connecting with the students. Not for spending their evenings at the kitchen table marking wrong and right answers.

### Why a Score Alone Doesn't Tell You Much

I wrote about this [in my last post](https://investant.net/blog/InvestantAcademy), but it's worth repeating because it's central to the value I believe Investant Academy brings.

Say you have a handful of students who all scored around 70% on a Spanish quiz. On paper, they look the same. But "John" might be struggling with past tense verbs while "Julia" can't get future tense down. "Sarah" has a limited vocabulary and "Eric" keeps misspelling words he actually knows. A 70% doesn't tell you any of that. It just tells you something went wrong.

When grading is manual, most teachers don't have the bandwidth to dig into every wrong answer for every student across every class. There aren't enough hours in the day. So the insights stay buried in the stack of papers, and the next unit starts whether everyone's ready or not.

That's the gap I want to close with automated grading and real-time analytics.

![investant_analytics_example_1.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnmr13rcg/image/upload/v1772936805/investant_analytics_example_1_73bdd10dbd.webp)

### What Happens When Grading Is Instant

When students complete assignments through Investant Academy, their responses are captured the moment they submit. For objective question types like multiple choice, true or false, and select all that apply, grading happens automatically. No waiting. No manual entry. The scores are there, and more importantly, the data behind the scores is there too.

Teachers can see which specific questions students missed, how the class performed overall, and whether a pattern is forming. If 80% of your students got the same question wrong, that's probably not a student problem. That's a signal that the material needs another pass.

This is the kind of insight that turns grading from a chore into something genuinely useful. Instead of just knowing *that* a student is struggling, you can see *where* they're struggling and start building a plan around it.

### Automated Grading Doesn't Mean Removing the Teacher

Automated grading works well for objective questions. Right or wrong, black or white. But not everything in education fits into that box.

A student writing a paragraph about the themes in *To Kill a Mockingbird* deserves more than a checkbox. That kind of work requires a teacher's judgment, their understanding of the student, their ability to see effort even when the execution isn't perfect. That's irreplaceable.

That's why we're building AI-assisted grading for free response questions. The system provides a suggested grade and feedback, then sends it to the teacher for review before anything is finalized. This takes the mechanical, repetitive parts out of the equation so teachers can focus on the work that actually requires them.

### What Teachers Do With the Time They Get Back

We trust that teachers are here to help their students. And if we provide them with more time and tools, they will take advantage and more students will be positively impacted.

When you give a teacher back even a few hours a week, the ripple effects are real. That's time to pull up a student's performance data and actually build a personalized review plan. Time to rethink a lesson and try a new approach. Time to grab coffee with a colleague and swap ideas. Or honestly, time to just leave school at a reasonable hour and be present at home.

My favorite teachers growing up were the ones who poured everything into their work and took the time to connect with me personally. If the repetitive stuff was handled for them, how much more of their energy could have gone toward helping and connecting with students?

This is where Investant helps.

### See It in Action

Investant Academy is in early access and we're building it alongside feedback from real educators. If you're a teacher who wants to see what automated grading, real-time classroom analytics, and interactive content delivery look like in one platform, I'd love for you to check it out.

Visit our [Academy Demo](https://investant.net/academy/demo) to explore the tools, or reach out to me directly at ryan@investant.net. I read every email.

---

*Ryan White is the founder of Investant, an all-in-one classroom management platform that helps teachers create interactive lessons, automate grading, and understand student performance at scale.*

Teachers spend 5 to 15 hours a week grading. Automated grading tools can give that time back. Here's how Investant Academy handles it.

How Automated Grading Gives Teachers Their Evenings Back

One of the most important financial decisions you will make in your life is the purchase of a home. Should you keep renting and invest your additional cash? Should you buy a property now to beat inflation and home prices in the future? What are some of the decision factors - financial and lifestyle - that you should consider before purchasing a home? We’ve developed the [Investant Rent or Buy Tool](https://investant.net/tools?block=RentOrBuy) to help answer some of these questions!

#### Rent or Buy Methodology

From a financial perspective, there are two main components to the decision to Rent or Buy: Expenses and Opportunity Costs. Using [our tool](https://investant.net/tools?block=RentOrBuy), in the graph on the right can be seen the average monthly expense by year if the home were to be purchased versus if you were to rent. This includes all of the forecasted expenses for each year over the course of the scenario, distributed across 12 months per year.

Try adjusting the mortgage term to 15 years, and entering that you will live in the home for 25 years to see how your monthly expense to live in the home completely falls away when the mortgage is paid off while renting prices continue to climb!

Directly below the graph lies more information on the cumulative costs of buying versus renting and the opportunity costs of each. If you were to rent, as an example, you will likely have additional cash on hand from smaller monthly payments and not needing to make the down payment on a mortgage loan. This additional cash can be invested and the proceeds from doing so can be seen as an opportunity cost to purchasing the home. However, buying the home will allow you to build equity through paying off the principal of the loan and through the appreciation of the home’s value. This can be seen as an opportunity cost to renting.

## How to Use the Tool

#### Decision Inputs

The first section contains the essential inputs for your analysis:

- Property Value: Enter the price of the home you're considering
- Down Payment: Input how much you plan to put down
- Living Years: Specify how long you plan to stay in the home
- Monthly Rent: Enter the comparable rental cost in your area

Growth Rates | These optional inputs help forecast future values:

- Annual Home Growth Rate: Expected appreciation of the property
- Annual Rent Growth Rate: Projected increase in rental prices
- Annual Investment Return: Expected return on invested savings

Other Expenses | These optional details help refine the tool to your situation:
For Renting:
- Monthly utilities
- Broker fees
- Rental insurance

For Buying:
- Mortgage rate and term
- HOA fees
- Property tax rate
- Maintenance costs
- Purchase and selling costs
- Homeowner's insurance
- Tax considerations
- Renovation budget

![InvestantRentOrBuyToolCoverImage.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnmr13rcg/image/upload/v1737402716/Investant_Rent_Or_Buy_Tool_Cover_Image_f0d8c3a0bd.png)

#### Understanding the Results

The tool provides several key insights:
- A comparison of average monthly cost based on how long you’ll live in the home
- An interactive graph showing the cost comparison over time
- Total costs for both renting and buying scenarios
- Investment returns from renting vs equity gained from buying

#### Beyond the Numbers: Lifestyle Considerations

While financial analysis is crucial, the rent or buy decision extends beyond pure economics. Home ownership can provide:
- Stability and control over your living space
- Freedom to customize and renovate without landlord approval
- A sense of community and belonging
- Pride of ownership and accomplishment
- Protection against rent increases and potential eviction

However, renting offers its own advantages:
- Flexibility to relocate for career opportunities
- Less responsibility for maintenance and repairs
- Lower upfront costs and financial commitments
- Simplified budgeting with predictable monthly expenses

Your decision should ultimately align with both your financial goals and personal values. Use our tool to understand the financial implications, but remember to consider how each choice fits into your broader life plans and aspirations.

![OriginalLogoInvestantTHIN.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnmr13rcg/image/upload/v1701147178/Original_Logo_Investant_THIN_1c2347d933.png)


One of the most important financial decisions you will make in your life is the purchase of a home. What factors should you consider?