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HandshakeDon’t Cancel That Class offers full-time and adjunct faculty members an alternative to canceling class. If you know that you need to be absent this semester, you can select from the menu of workshops listed below and a GCC faculty or staff member will come to your classroom and teach during your normal class period. Workshops scheduled through Don’t Cancel that Class will not count as an absence, but please contact your dean ahead of time if you need to miss more than one class period or have other questions.
Please plan ahead! You have the best chance of scheduling your top choice workshop if you submit the request form two weeks or more in advance. Instructors and students have also indicated that these workshops are most effective when:
- Students are notified in advance about the change.
- Workshop instructors drop-in ahead of time and are introduced by the professor.
- Faculty share upcoming assignments or coursework with the workshop instructor so that the workshop content can be tailored to the class.
- There is some curricular integration between the workshop and the course (for example, a forum prompt in Moodle reflecting on the workshop).
Not all classes are available in a given semester. Only currently available classes will be selectable below in the request form.
Academic Advising
Scholarship Essay Writing
The GCC Foundation offers more than 50 awards and scholarships to GCC students annually, and all applications require at least one essay. This workshop will focus on Foundation scholarships, but students will learn strategies and tips that will help them write any personal statement.
Academic Advising
Stop Procrastinating — Academic advising staff
Do you find yourself pulling all-nighters to write papers or cram for exams? Do deadlines seem to spring out of nowhere and derail you? Do you feel overwhelmed, like you’re scrambling just to keep up with everything? Come to this workshop to explore tools and strategies for taking charge of your semester. Learn how to balance your responsibilities, cut down on procrastination, and create time to relax without the guilt!
Academic Advising
Study Smarter — Academic advising staff
Good students don’t just study hard; they study well! Do you ever find yourself unsure exactly HOW you should study? Or feel like the amount of time you spend studying and your grades you earn don’t line up? Then this workshop is for you! We’ll teach you how to best use your study time and share techniques for effectively learning new material.
Academic Advising
Take Better Notes — Academic advising staff
Taking notes in class or while doing homework can be tricky. Ever look at your class notes days or weeks after writing them and have no idea what you meant? Or worry that you’ve missed important points during class? This workshop will give you some strategies that will help you become a better note-taker so you can stay focused in class and understand what you wrote down later. We’ll offer tips for all kinds of classes – even Math!
Academic Advising
There’s An App for That — Academic advising staff
Your mobile device isn’t only for procrastinating on Instagram! Come to this workshop and find out how to transform the technology in your pocket into a powerful tool for academic success. We’ll cover a couple of apps in each of three categories: time management, note-taking/organization, and study tools. We’ll also review syncing your school email account to your device and make sure you know where to go to follow up on this workshop with some one-on-one attention. You don’t need to be an expert–whether your phone is an extension of your body or you really don’t use it much at all, this workshop will have something for you! Bring your phone or tablet (we’ll talk about both Apple and Android).
Career Services
Career Exploration & Decision-Making: Key Tools & Strategies
This workshop introduces key tools, resources, and strategies that can be used to make a more informed career and/or education decision:
- Mass Career Information System (MassCIS)
- Labor Market Information (LMI) Research
- Experiential Research Strategies
- High Demand Industries & Occupations
- Career Assessments
- Reality Checking Strategies
- Goal Setting & Planning
- Transfer Services
Students will leave this workshop with action steps they can take to get more clarity about their career/education direction.
Career Services
Job Search Strategies — Shannon Doran
This workshop provides students with an overview of key resources and strategies that can used to organize and engage in an effective job search. This workshop does not include analysis or development of various job application documents but instead it makes students aware of commonly requested job application documents and the resources they can use to develop them. It also does not cover professional behavior and appearance or interview prep.
Greenhouse and Grounds
Tour of GCC Outdoor Growing Spaces — Tony Reiber
Tour GCC’s outdoor growing spaces. This workshop is weather dependent and is best selected in later spring or early-mid fall. Because this requires students to traverse uneven ground, it may not be a good option for students with mobility issues.
Inclusion and Diversity
Asset mapping for inclusion and diversity — Leo Hwang
What are our assets for diversity and inclusion and how can we utilize those to help our community become stronger and more inclusive?
Inclusion and Diversity
Community Economies and Asset Based Community Development — Leo Hwang
A look at the diverse economic practices that make up our local economies (capitalist and non-capitalist) and some interactive exercises to develop our own visions of what is possible in a local community economy utilizing the assets that are already present in the region.
Inclusion and Diversity
Creating Living Definitions of Terminology — Leo Hwang
An exercise in creating web definitions of diversity and inclusion terminology that help us gain an understanding about how different people have different definitions of terms and how those different definitions can sometimes exacerbate misunderstanding, but also how recognizing different definitions can also increase understanding and empathy.
Inclusion and Diversity
Language, Pronouns, and Gender Diversity — Liza Harrington and Lorena Nañez-Bonilla
This interactive workshop addresses gender pronouns and language to cultivate an inclusive environment for the trans and non-binary community at GCC. The purpose of the workshop is to inform why respecting gender identities matter, to familiarize students with trans-inclusive and gender-neutral language, and to engage students in interactive exercises where they will practice asking for and using various gender pronouns. In addition to this, the workshop will equip students with the tools to hold themselves and others accountable.
Leadership
What is Leadership? — Ewa Nowicki
What comes to mind when you think of a leader? Participants in this workshop will reflect on their past experiences and personal history to identify characteristics that they feel are critical to ethical leadership. The workshop will encourage participants to examine their personal values and engage in exercises to develop their own leadership skills.
Library
GCC Tech Tools — Library staff
This workshop, for developmental classes and 100-level classes, will give students hands-on practice using the various tools available through their GCC account, including Google Drive and Moodle, along with strategies for how to use these tools effectively. This workshop must take place in a computer classroom.
Library
Interpreting Visual Representations of Quantitative Data — Library staff
In this interactive workshop, students will work with real graphs, infographics, and other data visualizations to develop strategies for evaluating visual presentations of quantitative information.
Library
Media Literacy: Beyond “Fake News” — Library staff
In this participatory workshop, students will develop criteria they can use to analyze news sources in order to make educated guesses about their credibility.
Library
Online privacy and security — Library staff
This workshop will help students identify risks to their data security and present them with tools they can use to protect themselves from identity theft and hacking. The workshop content can be adapted to address risks faced by specific populations, such as domestic violence survivors or undocumented immigrants.
Library
Scholarship and citation — Library staff
Using assignments or content from the course in which this workshop occurs, students will discuss the scholarly process and take part in hands-on activities that will help them decide when citations are needed in order to correctly integrate information in their creations.
Library
Search & Destroy: Use databases like a boss — Library staff
Students will play a fun, interactive card and computer game called Search & Destroy that will teach database research skills. This workshop can be scheduled last-minute (provided a librarian is available).
Library
Strategies for Reading Scholarly Articles — Library staff
Students will work in small groups to dissect academic, scholarly journal articles relevant to the field of study for this course and develop a strategy for reading scholarly literature. This activity uses a worksheet which can be collected and evaluated or graded.
Library
Tailored Instruction Around a Research Assignment — Library staff
This workshop requires an initial consultation with one of the GCC librarians, in which we talk about the specifics of the assignment including the timeline for it and your students’ research needs.
Peer Tutoring
Reading, Note-taking, & Anticipating Test Questions — Cindy Snow
This workshop reviews the reading and study strategy SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite, review), as well as strategies that utilize multiple learning styles. If you provide a reading assignment that students haven’t done yet, we’ll use it to practice these strategies during class time.
WRC
Ethics for Practice — Diana Abath
Ethical behavior in one’s profession is a given in any industry. Many professional fields have codes of ethics that guide, and thus impact, their workforces. However, how do we come to have the “ethics” we hold? What makes up our ethical stance or philosophy and how does it show up for us in our daily lives? We will examine ethical decision-making models and real-life ethical dilemmas based on case studies and shared experiences and practice implementation.
WRC
Meaning of Work — Diana Abath
Have you ever considered what “work” (aka “employment”) actually means to you personally or professionally? This workshop will examine the meaning of work in American culture. Topics in human meaning making at different life stages and the implications for meaning making in the workplace will be explored. Variables such as age, gender, and career stage will be considered in formulating strategies to enhance job satisfaction.