The mission of GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is clear: to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. Working to achieve this mission is a diverse team of professionals — GEAR UP coordinators, school counselors, educators, and other GEAR UP staff who are responsible for collecting, inputting, analyzing, reporting, and utilizing data for monitoring and program improvement.
Whether you’re tracking student participation in college or career fairs, monitoring survey completion, FAFSA submissions, or analyzing your grant objectives metrics, raw data means little unless you can organize it, identify trends, and make meaning of the data. Having the skills to sort, filter, analyze, and visualize student-level data can significantly enhance how teams collect accurate data, plan meaningful activities, monitor participation, and clearly demonstrate the grant’s reach and impact.
Microsoft Excel is one of the most important tools in our professional toolbox, and quite often, we see many professionals in the GEAR UP space are not using the tool to its fullest potential. That is why the Xcalibur team has put together a course catalog of on-demand courses in Microsoft Excel covering topics including conditional formatting, functions, validation, visualization, lookup functions, and many more! Not everyone is an Excel wizard, and that is why the courses are tiered: beginner sessions for those just getting started, intermediate training to level up, and advanced workshops for more proficient users. These skills are not about “geeking out” on spreadsheets, they are about working smarter, not harder.
Microsoft Excel isn’t just for input; it is also for data insight. When professionals feel more confident using the tool, they can spend more time identifying trends and targeting support to improve student outcomes. That shift from merely seeing the tool as one for data entry to one of data empowerment is what moves GEAR UP programs forward. It’s about giving GEAR UP professionals the skills they need to work efficiently and make data-informed decisions for continuous improvement.
Visit our Xcalibur Absorb platform to get started. Take a moment to review the full course catalog and select the courses that best align with your learning goals. After you have purchased and enrolled in courses, you will see the courses listed under My Courses – GEAR UP Together! Skill-Building Workshops.
To all GEAR UP professionals, let’s GEAR UP Together! Happy Learning!
