History of the EOA Best Practices Clearinghouse: A model to identify, validate, and disseminate education

Abstract

The EOA National Best Practices Clearinghouse is focused on the needs of Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) and TRIO students who are economically disadvantaged, first-generation college attendees, and historically underrepresented in education. No other open-access clearinghouse in the nation is focused on this marginalized student population. Solutions developed for privileged students with social capital often do not meet the needs of these students. We represent the GEAR UP and TRIO community and are the first group of federally funded programs to create their own best practices clearinghouse. Rather than relying on practices developed by others, we created an online program manual of what works with our TRIO and GEAR UP students. Our administrative and educational practices have been evaluated by an external panel of education experts rather than relying solely on data studies from the institution hosting the practice. Another difference is that the EOA Clearinghouse identifies “why a practice works” and “what are the critical components and procedures” that must to be followed to achieve similar positive results. This article explores the need for a clearinghouse, definitions for a best education practice, key people involved with the clearinghouse, the history of events in the clearinghouse's life, and finally, lessons learned from the clearinghouse that could be helpful to others who wanted to create their own clearinghouse, and an appendix with information on processes of the clearinghouse to evaluate submissions. While programs in the field may all do essentially the same thing, they often do it differently to meet the unique needs of their students and the education setting. The EOA Clearinghouse honors that ingenuity and shares it with others.